PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS ‘Passive Dynamic Walker’ ‘Strandbeest’ Theo Jansen

concept of ‘passive dynamics’ originated in the 1980s by Tad McGeer, through a biped that achieved human-like walking with no actuation except gravity he found standing is statically unstable (requiring active stabilization) - but walking is dynamically stable

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS DYNAMIC STABILITY Boston Dynamics ‘Spot’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8YjvHYbZ9w

‘passive dynamics’ refers to the dynamical behavior of actuators, robots, or organisms when not drawing energy from a supply (i.e. batteries, fuel, ATP) dependent on the application, altering the passive dynamics of a powered system can have drastic effects on its performance - i.e. energy economy, stability devices using no power source are considered ‘passive’, and their behavior is fully described by their passive dynamics

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS DYNAMIC STABILITY 1981 Jean Nouvel, Arab World Institute, Paris, France mechanical apertures 2012 ICD Stuttgart, hygroscopic wood passive responsive apertures both of these built examples, are individual apertures situated within a framework drawbacks of traditional mechanical systems: expensive, complicated, labor-intensive to maintain, not energy-efficient or intuitive use of material / morphology passive-responsive adaptability embedded within a structure, morphology directly related to performance, movement is cyclical with the environnment PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS MATRICES OF ENERGY CONVERSIONS energy is usually stored or concentrated in a certain weight or volume: - chemical energy in the form of binding energy between molecules - nuclear energy in the form of binding energy between nucleons - electrical energy in the form of electrical charge (capacity, battery) - magnetic energy in the form of magnetic charge (magnetized material) - gravitational energy under higher potentials (water or material reservoirs) - kinetic energy in linear moving or in spinning systems - elastic energy in mechanical systems like springs or in memory metals - pressure energy in the form of pressurizes gases - thermal energy in the form of heated or cooled material resp. geothermal energy examples of free flowing energy in space, air, fluids as streams, waves, fields and/or particles: - electromagnetic radiation (EM-waves, photonic waves, gamma waves) - thermal radiation (infrared, which a basically a part of EM radiation) - gravitational field radiation (between stars) - centrifugal field radiation as the effect of a centrifugal potential - mechanical vibration (acoustical waves, fluid or gas waves) - mass particle movement (fluid streams, wind flowing) - radioactive particle radiation (alpha-particles, eletrons)

2017, Adolf Schneider (technical electrical engineer in Stuttgart) ‘Conversion of conventional and unconventional energies’ 2008, Smil, Energy in Nature and Society, ‘Matrix of Energy Conversions’

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS MATRICES OF ENERGY CONVERSIONS

Negroponte at MIT in the 1970’s was one of the first to use the phrase ‘responsive environment’, thought about developing software to develop an ‘architecture machine’, and felt that ‘any computational system for architecture has to be open to external stimuli’:

“An adaptable machine must receive direct sensory information from the real world. It must see, hear and read, and it must take walks in the garden. Information should pass into the machine through observation channels that are direct rather than undergo the mutuations of transfer from the real world to designer’s sensors to designer’s brain to designer’s effectors to machine’s sensors” (1970, 7+9) - Nicholas Negroponte, The Architecture Machine, 1973; Soft Architecture Machines, 1976

“For a long time architecture was thought of as a solid reality and entity: buildings, objects, matter, place, and a set of geometric relationships. But recently, architects have begun to understand their products as liquid, animating their bodies, hypersurfacing their walls, crossbreeding different locations, experimenting with new geometries … the real revolution is to come, when ‘genetech’ and ‘nanotech’ will merge with ‘infotech’.” (2005) - Ole Bouman, AD 2005, ‘Architecture Liquid Gas’

“ … it is 2008, and only recently are materials being comprehensively used for their dynamic properties and ability to change under controlled stimulus … new materials impose and invite new ways of building by transforming the boundaries of what is possible and imaginable … ” - Marcelo Coelho, 2008 MIT Thesis, Materials of Interaction: Responsive Materials in the Design of Transformable Interactive Surfaces; also stimulus-response matrix above

- 2002, ICE Installation, Bloomberg Tokyo, Klein Dytham Architecture and Toshio Iwai; curved glass wall responds to body movements using infared sensors, and interacting with real-time data

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS ADAPTIVE RESPONSIVE Sheng Xu et al University of Illinois, 2015: structures designed for collapse study of geometric transformation of 2D micro/nanostructures into extended 3D layouts by compressive buckling … the 3D architectures analogous to cytoskeletal webs, neural circuits, and vascular networks, that naturally provide essential functions even in basic forms of life. They also experimented with integration of electronic materials and devices.

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS MATERIAL GEOMETRY AND CHARACTER Lorna Gibson, Cellular Structures, 1999 brain coral, from Weinstock’s Architecture of Emergence, 2010

Levi Dudte and L. Mahavedan, Programming Curvature Using Origami Tesselations, 2016 insect wing development, from Weinstock’s Architecture of Emergence, 2010

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS MATERIAL GEOMETRY AND CHARACTER studies of starling flocks show that each bird modifies its position, relative to the six or bats drone footage, Khao no-Khao Kaeo, Thailand seven animals directly surrounding it, no matter how close or how far away those animals are (National Geographic)

(Ballerini et al. 2008. "Interaction ruling animal collective behavior depends on topological rather than metric distance: Evidence from a field study". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105 (4): 1232–7)

blue jack mackerel merge into a bait ball, a torus that confuses predators (wired.com) fire ants moving through a funnel (Georgia Institute of Technology) (nerdist.com/swarming-ants-behave-like-liquid-metal-when-you-squish-them/

‘swarms’, ‘flocks’ and ‘schools’ - individual unit vs. aggregation - movement and accumulated energy PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS AGGREGATION AND MOVEMENT Daniel Schiffman, The Nature of Code, 2012, ‘Cellular Autotomata’: sketch on OpenProcessing.org, generatons of CA, and a Textile Cone Snail [patterning / material distribution] based upon Craig Reynolds’ ‘boids’ (1986 computer model of coordinated animal motion) https://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS GENERATION: PATTERNING / ATTRACTORS ‘informed fish’ diagram, “Visual sensory networks and effective information transfer in animal groups” Couzin Lab, Princeton Lorenzo Mori, L-Systems

drain algorithm, simulating drainage on a surface, BenjaminGolderDesign Wim van Rees, Harvard SEAS, optimal shapes for biolocomotion PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS GENERATION: GROWTH AND ANALYSIS Karola Dierichs, ICD Stuttgart: aggregated granulates, and development of specialized tools for construction and analysis

Kathy Velikov /rvtr: PneuSystems, “a prototype-based exploration into the performative, formal and aesthetic potentials for cellular pneumatic membrane-based aggregate systems towards deep, lightweight and adaptive architectural skins”

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS UNITS, GEOMETRY, AGGREGATION Johannes Overvelde, Chuck Hoberman et al, 2016, ‘Three Dimensional Actuated Origami-Inspired Transformable Metamaterial with Multiple Degrees of Freedom’, modular designs of rigid faces and hinges, creating a periodic structure (that was also pneumatically actuated). http://www.overvelde.com/research/origami-inspired-metamaterial-3-2/

Self-Assembly Lab, MIT, 2015 ‘Aerial Assemblies’ large-scale modules that can assemble in airspace … 36” helium-filled weather balloons in fiberglass frames with strategically placed magnets determine how they aggregate

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS FLUIDS, PNEUMATIC + MAGNETIC Skylar Tibbits, 2017 course at MIT, ‘Flying Assemblies, Fast Cheap and Out of the Box’, folding figure-8 fiberglass structures, that pop into shape

Quechua, 2009, ‘2 Seconds Easy Camping Tent’, www.quechua.com

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS GEOMETRIC / KINETIC ‘POP’ ITKE Stuttgart

‘Bio-Inspired Kinetic Curved-Line Folding for Architectural Applications’, 2016, discusses the development of a bio-inspired compliant mechanism, including geometry development and FEA analysis; to demonstrate its possibilities for building envelopes of complex geometries. This incarnation, ‘Flectofold’, is inspired by Aldrovanda vesiculosa, (‘waterwheel’ aquatic plant, that traps small invertebrates), and prototpyes are glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRP).

‘Flectofin’, 2012, studied the elastic structural deformation of the Strelitzia reginae flower; in the prototpes, bending of the ‘backbone’ causes the lamina to deflect up to 90 degrees. Concept was applied to the EXPO 2012 Pavilion with soma-architecture, Vienna. PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS GEOMETRIC / KINETIC COMPLIANT MECHANISMS Sean Ahlquist, ICD / University of Michigan, integrated composite textile hybrid material systems PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS CONDUCTIVE, SHAPE MEMORY, TEXTILE BEHAVIOR Tangible Media, MIT

‘uniMorph’, rapid fabrication of customized thin-film shape-changing interfaces: “by combining the thermoelectric characteristics of copper with the high thermal expansion rate of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene, we are able to actuate the shape of flexible circuit composites directly”

‘bioLogic’, integration of living Bacillus Subtilis natto cells onto a substrate material, to create a composite biofilm for use as a humidity sensitive nanoactuator.

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS CONDUCTIVE, RESPONSIVE BIOFILMS Tangible Media, MIT

‘bioLogic’, ‘growing living actuators and synthesizing responsive bio-skin in the era where bio is the new interface; a second skin’

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS CONDUCTIVE, RESPONSIVE BIOFILMS Decker Yeadon, 2014, ‘Homeostatic Facade System’, encased in the cavity of a double-skin glass facade, silver-coated dielectic elastomers (polymer materials) are polarized by applying an electrical current (triggered by a sensor) - causing it to deform, controlling solar heat gain.

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS CONDUCTIVE POLARIZED POLYMERS IaaC(Barcelona), hydrogel ceramic composite - ‘Hydroceramic’

Saurabh Mhatre and Malika Singh, 2015 GSD thesis ‘Embedded Materiality’ explored and analyzed standard hydrogels in multiple capacities - -thermal, mechanical, and optical

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS FLUIDS HYGROSCOPIC ICD Stuttgart, Steffen Reichert, Achim Menches and David Correa, 2015, ‘Biomimetic building skins based on materially embedded and hygroscopically enabled responsiveness’ explores the natural hygroscopic and anistropic properties of wood, through prototypes composed of strategically placed veneers / laminates for bending, for autonomously responsive architectural systems

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS FLUIDS HYGROSCOPIC

TOP DOWN VS. BOTTOM UP driven by research phenomena vs. application

FORCES

ENERGY, AND ITS TRANSFER

SCALE

STIMULUS / RESPONSE

HUMANSCALE, HAPTICS, ENVIRONMENTAL, INTERACTIVE

PARAMETERS, PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

UNIT VS. SYSTEM

MATERIAL IN RELATION TO SYSTEM

TIME, SPEED, REPEATABILITY, FATIQUE how fast / frequently does it move? seconds, days, months?

VISUALIZATION AND ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES can continously inform and feed the process

GEOMETRY DESIGN for movement / collapse, material-specific, tuned to desired performance, can facilitate energy exchange

PASSIVE | RESPONSIVE | ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS RANDOM KEY POINTS OF DEPARTURE