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    • If the example of Cedric Price has in some way

    2018-10-31

    If the example of Cedric Price has in some way influenced most buildings responsive to the actions of users, Reyner Banham is behind much contemporary thinking about responsiveness to the weather and environment. In 1969 his essay ‘A home is not a House’, Banham introduced minimal environmental solutions such as the tent and the campfire as representations of a building capable of dynamically modifying its boundaries and thermal properties in response to the environment. This theoretical proposal is further developed in a vision for the future of the house as a mobile structure reduced to its minimal environmental functions and capable of rapid reconfiguration in response to change in the exterior or interior environment. Recent art works by Philippe Rahm have explored the traces left in the configuration of interior microclimates by users and building environmental systems: in ‘Interior Weather’ at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal, Philippe Rahm created a visualization of interior climatic variation driven by an array of fluorescent fixtures, as well as the passage of visitors through the exhibit. Another means of categorizing responsive architecture is in terms of rates of change, an approach promoted by Stuart Brand in his book ‘How Buildings Learn’. Brand׳s ‘Shearing layers of change’ diagram, with its concentric rings of building components organized according their relative rates of change, promoted the idea that building components should be segregated according to their rate of change. ‘Stuff’, the furnishings and personal equipment that accumulate in buildings, has the highest level of obsolescence and a rate of change that varies from daily to monthly, while ‘structure’ is the most durable aspect of the building itself, the part that persists over time. Brand׳s diagram not only provides a convenient schema for organizing the elements of building, it cytokine inhibitors also presupposes the idea that all components of the building are constantly in a state of change and was innovative in its time for suggesting rates of change as a primary organizing principle for building components. According to Brand, “Because of the different rates of change of its components, a building is always tearing itself apart” (Brand, 1995). This is a warning with particular relevance in the case of responsive buildings, which incorporate not only moving parts but also a digital infrastructure of software and hardware with a rate of obsolescence measured in months rather than years. Brand׳s ‘Shearing layers of change’ concept emphasizes the fact that new expectations for the rate at which buildings change imply specific strategies for the integration of responsive elements in the building.
    Beyond instrumentality: the poetic functions of responsive architecture In addition to the measurable goal of producing more energy-efficient buildings, there is also a tradition of employing responsive building components as a poetic, expressive, and potentially subversive element in architecture. The concept of interactive surfaces as an expressive element of the building has been explored in numerous installations, mostly temporary, which have explored the architectural implications of materials capable of change in response to their immediate surroundings. Rachel Wingfield׳s illuminated fabric installations include dynamic pieces that respond to their surroundings and offer the possibility of integration in the architectural environment. Her ‘Sound reactive wallpaper’ is a patterned surface that glows in response to ambient noise levels and becomes spatial in its wrapping of an interior. Jeffrey Huang and Muriel Waldvogel have described how “the tectonic and psychological effect of our surroundings can be augmented, subverted, and estranged by animating wallpapers and introducing an interactive, possibly darker dimension into architecture.” The interactive surfaces that they have developed in a series of interactive digital art projects introduce an unexpected, subversive quality realized through a range of innovative material interfaces such as crocheted fabric with integrated electro-luminescent wires and touch sensors and pneumatic structures with integrated display screens.