Architectural Light & Magic # Beta Test

This is called "Architectural Light and Magic" as under these headings multimedia content (typically video) relating to my project will be posted. This Beta entry is a test link for integrating video into my blog so that I can use the code as reference for when I create additional entries. Its by Leonardo Robanni (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=leonardobonanni) and is a "finalist competition entry for the kendall square interactive competition" which I randomly found and thought would be a good test link to try out.

What this means is that I can add video of my work onto this site too... cool!

Making a Responsive Building

I was reading "Responsive Environments: Architecture Art and Design" (amazon link) by Lucy Bullivant (she edited "4D Space Interactive Architectue" (credit again to www.interactivearchitecture.org for pointing me towards this book) and a rather phrase was used which whilst seeming quite vague could be useful in focussing my work:

"Evolving effective responsive sytems, and creating a credible interface between the work and the user, requires an awareness of many different types of user, contexts and functions as well as the phenomenological aspects of social and environmental conditions."

Whilst not being prescriptive, it does give a number of key points for direction in a project which I think can be applied for developing an Idea Store brief. (At this point I am uncomfortable with the term "Idea Store" as it seems is a buzzword for a building type which appears to be more of a re-branding of librarys than delivering something as innovative as it could be.

So things to consider:

Different types of users and their requirements - public, private, changing over a short period of time and dependent on different functional requirements of the brief.

Different contexts in which the building can operate - different times of day... eg on a friday night the use of the building could be drastically different than at 4pm on a weekday.

Different functions or modes of operation of the building - again different times of day could have an impact on the different functions the building posesses. The accomodation of facilities such as exhibition spaces, dance spaces as well as traditional functions should be considered together in conjunction with how this could change according to time of day (and also possibly future change of functions?)

Phenomenological, Social and Environmental conditions - the perception of the building, how this changes according to outside change (weather, context change, interaction, function) and the functional intearction of the building is important here. These aspects need to be woven into the rest of the buidling conecpt (in a form/function type relationship) and offer potential for artistic/creative uses of technologies and the responsive nature of the building. Environmental change is something that responsive buildings have investigated (the most mundane being Building management systems going to responding physically and change of the buildings form based on airflow - see Office for Robotic Architecture).

Food for thought.... (and action - I think that in developing the project, the meat of the design process will be in actually working up the project, playing with different ideas/response/technology and actually designing the building... will elaborate on this later too).

musings on wiki's blogs etc

Just an idea I had whilst reading a recent paper on education and blogs. The general idea was that traditional learning/knowledge is based on a linear fashion - learning something parrot fashion from someone else which is a simplification as knowledge is multi-faceted. This is being explored in using wikis and blogs where knowledge and learning is through community interaction and discourse rather than knowledge from an ivory tower.

Therefore in a project about media and knowledge shouldn't 21st century knowledge and education be aware of this and the design and implementation of such integrate with this concept?

What would a wiki-blog building be?

(btw the paper is at http://www.wikisym.org/ws2005/proceedings/paper-03.pdf)

Bureau for Responsive Architecture

In my regular trawl through www.interactivearchitecture.org I found a link to "The Office for Robotic Architectural Media and Bureau for Responsive Architecture" which I have begun to investigate as developments in technology and architecture.

http://www.oframbfra.com/

Ranting on Idea Stores (and a little technology)

Having recently visited a number of Idea stores in London to get an idea about their current program and the building typology, I felt a little disappointed. Admittedly currently I have visited 2 of the 4 built, however in my opinion there seemed very little initially seperating them from conventional libraries. It was interesting comparing the Adjaye idea store (nearish the Gerkin) to the marketplace adjacent. One was lively and bustly whilst the other was seperate and unengaging with the majority of people. The market had a more rapid exchange of data and interactions and was acting far more of a social hub than the idea store. On the ground floor of the store members of the local government were setting up workshops on how to best re-develop the area and I wonder how many people from the market actually got involved (and to what degree they did). You can bet the organisers chose that day to put it in to coincide with the market and the store logostically made the most sense, however this could certainly be improved in the future design of a similar typology.

How about a building which uses display technologies in a variety of ways depending on time of day and can cater for different events? A similar precedent can be seen in the work of Cedric Price where outdoor theatres could temporarily be created (ok and a little archigram there too). In addressing the lack of livelyness of the idea stores, a building that positively integrated/incorporated public events into its own built fabric I propose following up upon. The building needs to give something back to the public realm, if it is part of a dynamic interactive information institution (I think the word institution is inappropriate for this project). Just off the top of my head perhaps a building form which could create external public spaces (suitable for markets, street art, public theatre and cinema), however could also adapt at night to not just close off particular elements but to also provide additional information content. eg 12am you can go up to the builidng and find the number for a taxi company from the interactive display content. It would be ideas like this which could add to give the building a distinct character in the city.