Interactive Architecture

by Michael Fox, Miles Kemp

Every year, a bevy of new phones, games, televisions, and electronic reading devices ride into our lives on a tidal wave of interactive hype. These i-products, while handy, primarily confine their interactivity to the surfaces of screens. Not exactly the kind of "world-changing" transformation we've been promised. In Interactive Architecture, authors Michael Fox and Miles Kemp introduce us to a brave new world where design pioneers are busy creating environments that not only facilitate interaction between people, but also actively participate in their own right. These spacesable to reconfigure themselves in response to human stimuliwill literally change our worlds by addressing our ever-evolving individual, social, and environmental needs. In other words, it's time to stop asking what architecture is and start asking what it can do.

Interactive Architecture is a processes-oriented guide to creating dynamic spaces and objects capable of performing a range of pragmatic and humanistic functions. These complex physical interactions are made possible by the creative fusion of embedded computation (intelligence) with a physical, tangible counterpart (kinetics). A uniquely twenty-first century toolbox and skill setvirtual and physical modeling, sensor technology, CNC fabrication, prototyping, and roboticsnecessitates collaboration across many diverse scientific and art-based communities. Interactive Architecture includes contributions from the worlds of architecture, industrial design, computer programming, engineering, and physical computing. These remarkable projects run the gamut in size and complexity. Fullscale built examples include a house in Colorado that programs itself by observing the lifestyle of the inhabitants, and then learns to anticipate and accommodate their needs. Interactive Architecture examines this vanguard movement from all sides, including its sociological and psychological implications as well as its potentiallybeneficial environmental impact.

Genres: Design, Architecture

256 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2009

Reviews

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brimmed with technological innovations of the 2010s, this book is an interesting anachronistic sphinx of a recently bygone and superseded era of architectural futurism. The writing is a bit banal, perhaps maundering, but does provide sources for further reading. Interactive Architecture makes an interesting addition to one's library, but I couldn't imagine its inclusion would be more than a reference for writing one's graduate level thesis.

[Moses · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thought this book would be better, but it's just a ton of rambling. There's a ton of example projects, but they're not even clearly referenced nor explained.

[Arwa Kenawy]

good