Posthumanist Responsive Architecture: Environments That Care

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“….the nature of both mind and spirit must be architectural components at Waterloo’s Integrated corporeal”– Lucretius, De Rerum Natura Centre for Visualization, Design and Manufacturing, Kinetic mechanisms based on digitally fabricated In the following discussion I explore posthumanist textile assemblies, actuation systems and micro- ethics as a strategy for working with responsive ar- processor-based control systems using open-source chitecture and attempt to relate this theoretical con- coding and design are enabling technologies. text to a series of projects developed within my own practice. The projects are designed with the intent of Past generations of ‘responsive’ architecture have finding renewed, mutual relationships between oc- been contested, subjected to substantial ethical cupants and environments.1 Fulfilling impressions of debate. In debates of this past century the con- kinetic architecture that were the subject of vision- cept of an instrument was often negatively associ- ary designs throughout the past century, an emerg- ated with ‘functionalist’ rationales that seemed re- ing new generation of building systems proclaim ex- sponsible for erosion of the dignity and freedom of panded qualities of a new ‘instrumental’ architecture individuals. Those voices3, which span some three defined by its performance. [Hensel, Menges 2008]2 generations of this past century, tend to align with Responsive functions engage a broad contemporary preceding critics of the Industrial Revolution in debate that has tended to replace anxiety about in- suggesting that treating architecture as an ‘instru- strumentalism with optimism about expanded quali- ment’ comes at a cost, just as the expanded powers ties. However it might be claimed that new gen- achieved by Alfred Arkwright’s spinning machines erative and parametric design practice have yet to and Henry Ford’s assembly lines arguably came at engage significant critical consequences of affective the cost of individual freedom. Perhaps inevitably, design. How does this architecture affect us? Kinetic today’s renewed examination of interactivity treads mechanisms offer significant scope for manipulat- on similar contested ground. Distinguishing a new ing the environment, but current strategies for regeneration of interactive architecture, sophisticat- sistance and for introducing sensitivity and ‘conse- ed functions are emerging that respond to building quence’ accompanying this expanded power appear occupants and surrounding environments, increas- slight. Contributing to this emerging practice and, ingly based on technical innovations that employ I hope, offering critical strategies, I am attempting distributed communication and control systems, to develop rudimentary emotional response func- lightweight actuators and sensors integrated within tions within built environments within my own de- component-based envelope systems. In turn, these sign work. Within the affects of emotion and empa- new building components are supported by emerg- thy, I am pursuing distributed physical environment ing design methods involving cycles of dynamic that might react to the state of occupants within the visualization and prototyping of complex systems, space, offering responses based on revulsion and and by emerging design tools employing new gen- attraction. My work involves practical technical de- erative and parametric design practices. Howev- velopment of innovative interactive sculptures and er, while impressions of kinetic architecture have POSTHUMANIST RESPONSIVE ARCHITECTURE 643

been the subject of visionary designers throughout 1830 debate, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and the past century, it might be said that the ethical Georges Cuvier, leading biologists and founders of implications of new ‘responsive’ architecture are the Museum of Natural History in Paris, examined only beginning to engage critical debate. Recent the basis of nature. Against Cuvier’s rear-guard de- prominent discussions exemplified by Kolarevic and fence of a Great Design determining individual spe- Malkawi’s Performative Architecture4 offer building cies anatomy, Geoffrey argued that anatomy deter- performance as a guiding design principle, adopt- mined how a species behaved, opening the door to ing new performance-based priorities for the de- speculations about nature divorced from theology. sign of cities, buildings, landscape and infrastruc- Geoffrey implied that there was no particular ‘tran- tures. This emerging architecture places broadly scendent’ destiny involved in individual functions, defined performance above form making, and use only concrete and ‘immanent’ functions that would digital simulations and fabrication strategies in pur- create particular opportunities for behaviour. The suit of comprehensive approaches to the design of argument of these two biologists threatened foun- the built environment. Immanent, dynamic, open: dations of their culture. In turn, similar debates be- the qualities focused by voices such as Kolarevic, tween ‘transcendent’ and ‘immanent’ qualities has Leach, and Spiller are marked by a striking opti- continued beyond Darwin’s conceptions of natural mism about the expanded powers of performance- selection and genetic mutation. A recent hinge for based architecture. The visionary schemes offered this debate is arguably the entry of Michael Fou- by avant-gardes exploring kinetic modes have cault’s Discipline and Punish within architectural tended to remain transcendently positive in such discourse a generation ago. Foucault dwelt on the discussions, yielding total visions that appeared to oppressive machinery of prisons and madhouses hold only the limits of technical innovation as their and, perhaps fatally, linked those institutional restraint. A collective manfesto is implied aspiring building types to the spatial mode of radiant sym- to the creation of high-performance architectures metries and axial constructions. By implying that that emulate complex natural systems, shaped as symmetrical, crystalline systems of unified geom- flexible ‘manifolds’ supporting diverse action. With etry in urban architecture were tantamount to Fas- reasonable-cost, durable mechatronics now inte- cism, Foucault’s power analyis lent fundamental grated within many Western industries, restraint hesitation to the continuous project of the Enlight- now appears indeed slight. Current strategies for enment. Insidious qualities embedded within such critical judgement introducing sensitivity and ‘con- total visions have widely remarked in post-modern sequence’ accompanying this expanded power of generations of discussion. mechanisms for manipulating the environment appear in the very early stages of development, In striking contrast to such a critique, a reverently seemingly remaining within the long shadow of transcendent vision of creation was evoked in Amer- twentieth-century technological optimism and ican designers such as Louis Sullivan and his pupil rooted within the centuries-old humanist tradition. Frank Lloyd Wright, building a vision of architecture embedded with the symphonic forces of nature. This Yet in contrast to this apparent consensus, design strategies and ethics of related design traditions within the past two centuries have been fraught with argument. Has distance from earlier parox- ysmic debates over eugenics and behaviour-pro- gramming relaxed the taboo of approaching hu- manity as mechanism? Have the formidable powers of new digital parametric tools and complex- behaviour modeling methods renewed confidence in the engineering of nature?

When preceding generations of engineers and designers developed analogies that held architecture 1. D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson Proportional systems to be operable like a complex instrument, their of human physiology, ‘After Albrecht Durer’, D’Arcy arguments tended to be divided. In their famous Wentworth Thompson, On Growth and Form, 1917 644 Re.Building

late nineteenth-century organicism followdirectly Buckminster Fuller proposed his ‘ operating panel from Haeckel’s illustrated opus ‘Art forms in Nature’, for Space Ship Earth’ beside the United Nations�, he which illustrated Darwin’s vision of the practical evo- envisioned networked global markets and enlight- lution of species. Building a new kind of steward- ened individual human agency as a social and po- ship from this immersion in complex systems of na- litical fundament, while B. F. Skinner’s mid-century ture, D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s 1917 opus On brand of behaviourist psychology attempted to engi- Growth and Form5 offered methods for manipulation neer happy, productive subjects. This transcendent, of dynamic forces. While that author’s benign influ- crystalline territory seems exemplified by Fuller’s ence on design has been repeatedly cited, the politi- radiant ‘geoscope’, a floating spherical instrument cal application of his methods to ‘improving’ human panel connecting to vast networked global systems, species through eugenics is also poignantly evident. focusing the entire world into a coherent, unified ve- In a similar vein, the mid-century systems-biologist hicle for organized operation. Conrad Waddington’s mid-century conception of an epigenetic field6 extended Thompson’s biomathe- matics into an environment organized by intermeshing form-creating forces.

3. Original concept sketch of Geoscope, R. Buckminster Fuller, 1962, illustrated in Fuller, Critical Path, St. Martin’s Press, 1981

The geologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin developed a compelling historical argument that I 2. Conrad Waddington Cell fate switching in an epigenetic believe offers resolution of this contested ground. landscape, portrayed by Conrad Waddington: dynamics Working between 1920 and 1956, the latter date of of developmental selection represented as landscape his death of release of his heretical writingsby the with hills and valleys. The lowest points in the valley Catholic church, de Chardin voiced a remarkable correspond to distinct, stable phenotypes within wide repertoire of fates (Waddington, Epigenetic Landscape, hope for emerging qualities of integrated, coher- detail; Strategy of the Genes, 1957) ent world organization rooted in the voluntary organization of overlapping networks of individuals. Waddington’s pragmatic tone might not advertise Increasing multiplication and overwhelming den- transcendence, but his vision of an environment sity of networks created coherence that might in that shapes and channels every action appears turn result in a ‘noosphere’ of collective conscious- overarching. Similarly, prominent voices within a ness. [image 4] Poignantly, De Chardin hoped that mid-twentieth century generation of designers held this consciousness would be accompanied by an the spectre of an orchestrated environment of inte- emerging ‘prodigious affinity’, a tangible collective grated systems in extraordinary confidence. When sympathy acting at global collective scale. POSTHUMANIST RESPONSIVE ARCHITECTURE 645

This immersion pursues substantial involvement.In the terms of figure-ground relationships the figures I compose are riddled with the ground.

Kinetic mechanisms based on digitally fabricated textile assemblies, actuation systems and microprocessor-based control systems using open- source coding and design are enabling technologies. The physical assemblies in these projects employ a series of natural laws involving energy flow, nutrient cycling and dynamic balance expressed in distinct functions. For example, the snap-fit of a plastic tongue into a mating socket needs just enough friction to grip its mate while staying flexible enough to avoid collapsing the whole surface. The design approach to sub-units is in pursuit of a balance of refinement and economy. This approach is circumstantial and dominated by quite flexible, practical judgment, far from a picture of perfection. The textile strategies I use make intensive labour for adjusting individual parts impractical. There are tens of thousands of parts, so tooling and fabrication motion used in making each piece is com- pounded. This requires an economy of means.

The primitive cycles of opening, clamping, filtering and digesting in the artificial assembly are inflected by some of the same natural forces that make a coral reef work. Building upon simple motions embedded within individual elements, accumulated actions produce turbulent wave-like reactions. 4. Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (Harper, 1956) A number of my installations have been inserted PROJECTS into natural environments. They work to catch and inject matter, accumulating density and eventually A series of my own projects have followed de Char- forming into a hybrid turf. Like ill-fitting clothes, din’s invitation to pursue ‘empathy’ embedded with- this work has an uncomfortable relationship with in the built environment. Within the affects of emo- its natural host. The relationship of these object- tion and empathy, I hope to develop paradigms for assemblies contains layers of violence: the violence distributed physical environment that might offer of a foreign colony imposed on a living host; the behaviour based on revulsion and attraction, react- forces of dismembering and consuming; the force ing to the emotional state of occupants within the of will, violating the ethical boundaries that main- space. Interaction within my current projects strays tain nature as an untouched sanctuary. into parasitic modes involving self-serving injes- tion and consumption on the part of the environ- Hungry Soil, a sculpture installed in Toronto in ment. Current work focuses on integrating control 2000, was conceived as a cousin of benign geo- systems with decentralized responsive intelligence. textiles that would shelter and accelerate plant The work is based on a program of gradual devel- growth. Captured large-scale organic matter fer- opment moving from individual figures composed tilizes the system. Thin-gauge spring-wire is bent of hybrid organisms toward immersive architectural into wishbone-shaped units that interlink to make environments that include lightweight interior-lin- an octohedral space-truss. Expansion of the skel- ings and exterior shading and filtering assemblies.� eton truss yields a foam-like mesh spanning large 646 Re.Building

5. Hungry Soil, BCE Place Toronto, 2000 6. Orgone Reef, University of Manitoba, 2002 volumes with minimal mass. Slide-lock details ac- stalled at the University of Manitoba in 2002, is companied by simple compression-collars formed conceived as an artificial reef that could support from biodegradable polymer tubing provide a uni- a living skin. The project is a hybrid geotextile, a versal system. Clips integrated in the wire skeleton new class of materials used for reinforcing land- provide attachment points for collection bladder- scapes and buildings. The details of this structure needles and twin barb-traps. These active elements are designed to catch and hold the things they con- saturate the mesh in a dense three-dimensional ar- tact, accumulating a thick, porous mass. The proj- ray. A lurking quality results. ect functions with aggression, clamping and cutting into neighbours, draining and digesting the things The system was derived from the artificial skin re- contacted and converting this material into fertile placement system for burn therapy developed by soil. The structure would help a scarified landscape Toronto’s Apotex Industries. In that system, a bio- heal and grow new layers. degradable gauze is seeded by gel capsules coat- ed with human skin cells engineered for replicaton `Several kinds of rhombic pyramidal structural tiles and bathed in nutrient solutions. Regenerated skin make this textile, connected by vinyl links that al- grows over the affected area, and the scaffold that low flexing and shifts in local relationships. The in- holds the seed elements is eventually dissolved and terlinking system creates a billowing space-truss absorbed. Hungry Soil envisions a similar approach that alternately arches upward and hangs in cat- to landscape regeneration. Springing barbed details enaries, adapting to locations of intermittent sus- encouraging accretive massing and clumping, a slow pended supports. A primary tile, repeated hundreds process of ingestion. Protruding hooks and latex of times within the topography, includes a pyrami- bladders equipped with hollow needles imply me- dal skeleton that supports a deeply serrated mylar chanical operations on drifting organic matter: cap- filter configured to provide one-way trapping flows ture, injection, ingestion. The work was conceived within a fluid medium. Fronds of adjacent tile filters during a time of personal study of the Kindertrans- intermesh, yielding a coarse felted membrane. port, organized transport of Jewish children from Germany to the United Kingdom in 1938-9. Details Cutting patterns are designed to release embedded of the Soil work relate to blood and earth imagery, stresses within roll-formed mylar, producing orient- and levels of mechanical repetition raised questions ed curling of frond-rows within the filter material. of exchanges between imperial organizations. Curled elements are arranged in opposing pairs, producing passive mouth-like pores that encour- Orgone Reef extends the simple wire details of Er- age passage in one direction while resisting reverse ratics Net by pursuing hybrid three-dimensional passage. This hybrid osmotic function is employed elements that gradually pull, push and pump ma- as a design principle at varying scales within the in- terials within and environment. The sculpture, installation. Motions telegraphing through the matrix POSTHUMANIST RESPONSIVE ARCHITECTURE 647

8. Implant Matrix, Interaccess Gallery, Toronto, 2006

fitted with layers of miniature valves and clamping 7. Cybele, Cambridge, 200: Detail of interlocking cellulose mechanisms. Distributed microprocessors, arrays burr units of whisker-sensors and shape-memory alloy actuators provided a networked control system for the allow this system to function as a distributed pump matrix. These elements were arranged in chained, acting upon the environment. rolling swells that made subtle grasping and sucking motions. The composite motion created billowing Cybele, installed in Cambridge Ontario in 2005, is ‘peristaltic’ pumping that filtered humidified air and a self-assembling framework made of delicate laser collected organic matter within the matrix surface. cut components connected and oriented by miniature rare-earth magnets. A barbed cellulose mem- The skeleton was formed from hundreds of slender brane covers the structure. The membranes ride rhombic cells laser-cut from acrylic sheet. This ma- upon individual snap-fit acrylic frames and create a trix contained a regular array organized as a planar continuous topography. The rhombic tesselation of diagrid. At intervals, an additional tile was introduced this system is reinforced by intertwined felting cre- and created points of three-dimensional hemispher- ated by intermeshing of the serrated cellulose ma- ical swelling. These nodes offered compressive shell terial. Through flex and movement in the system strength that allowed them to act as toughened the system knits itself together. Tiles are supported gussets within the membrane system, providing by a precarious scaffold akin to a tangled forest points of concentrated structural connection for the canopy whose structure is concentrated at upper assembly as a whole. Additional distortions and fis- and lower levels. Upper spring-clip wire mounts sures in junctions between assembled tilework sec- are configured for insertion into quarter-points of tions resulted from a collaborative assembly method the cellulose tiles. Lower tripod sets include paired coordinated among numerous builders. needle-stakes that work in concert with a lead counterweight encouraging free rotation prior to The cells contain flat profile struts with integrated settling into final orientation. These details encour- snap-fit tabs and slots that accommodated trans- age jostling, flexible negotiation between tiles and verse stiffeners and junction plates. Each cell con- support formation of densely interwoven felt in the tained a meshwork membrane pump unit powered upper layer. Each tile carries a brace of suspended by shape-memory wire actuators. These membrane elongated bladders. Funnel-shaped openings for pumps were composed from thin mylar sheets and each bladder are oriented upward, for drainage and contained hinged mouth details that functioned in a collection. Salts prime the bladders, anticipating di- similar manner to folded paper mechanisms in pop- lution and exchange. up books. Long ciliated fringes containing miniature barbed hooks extended the outer surfaces of these filter membranes and encouraged tangling with ad- Implant Matrix was a diffused cloud of interlinked jacent units, making a continuous felted surface. elements that accumulated to make a building skin, mounted in 2006 in Toronto. A lightweight polymer A second filter layer was suspended below the skel- skeleton was cloaked with a quilted mylar tilework eton, attached by spacer-struts containing variable- 648 Re.Building

angle hemispherical rare-earth magnetic joints. Quilted mylar tiles derived from the Orpheus Filter system were used for this installation. Similar to the Orpheus Filter system, a quasiperiodic Penrose tessellation organized these tiles, and a universal geometry of junction holes permitted rotation and layering of the units. A thicket of activated whiskers was mounted within this layer. Fields of secondary glands and collection pores populated the surfaces of the filter. Injector glands contained silicone bladders fitted with long probes for passage of salt deposits into trapped host bodies. Small trapping pores were set to operate with suspended hair trig- gers hanging alongside the whisker systems. Ex- tended feet for these elements used detailing akin 9. Hylozoic Soil, Montreal Museum of Fine Art, 2007: to legs on a water spider, distributing weight and Detail of actuated sensors at column bases, with mounting riding on the meniscus of the filter surface. clamps.

The whiskers responded to touch with convulsive and drawing stray organic matter through arrays contractions that were powered by shape-memo- of filters.The microprocessor-controlled system in- ry actuators pulling along the axis of the wound cludes Arduino hardware extended by new control music-wire whisker cores. When viewers touched boards, shape-memory alloy actuators and space a whisker, changes in electrical resistance were sensors arranged in a distributed interactive sys- sensed by capacitance sensing circuits within sub- tem. Lightweight lattice and geodesic organizations control circuits connected to main node controllers. form a structural core, employing digitally fabricat- These controllers would respond with actuation ed lightweight scaffolds that house distributed net- signals that would initiate sequences of opening works of sensors and actuators. The structures are and closing mouths within local clusters of mem designed at multiple scales including custom com- brane pumps. Additionally, the controllers emitted ponents, intermediate tessellations composed of communication signals to adjacent nodes in neigh- component arrays, and general structural systems. bouring pump colonies that initiated secondary responses. Ripples of movement resulted from this The structural core of Hylozoic Soil is a flexible sequence of signals. The main control boards used meshwork assembled from small acrylic chevron- simple Peripheral Interface Controller ‘PIC’ micro- shaped tiles that clip together in tetrahedral forms. processor hardware. Each board controlled sever- These units are arrayed into a resilient, self-brac- al dozen actuator and sensor elements in parallel ing diagonally organized space-truss. Curving and chains, and a communication system using modu- expanding this truss work creates a flexible grid- lar connectors and twisted-pair circuitry provided shell topology. Columnar elements extend out from communication functions for coordinated respons- this membrane, reaching upward and downward to es through the entire installation. a radical minimum by employing optimized form- finding design methods. Strategies include use of Hylozoic Soil is a large environment that formed efficient tensile forces and textile systems in mesh part of the Montreal Beaux-Arts Museum’s ‘E-Art’ and shell forms and derivation of three-dimensional exhibition in 2007. The sculpture offers patterns forms from thin, two-dimensional sheets of mate- of motion by mechanical components that respond rial. Space-filling tessellations and nested compo- to occupants’ movement within the environment. nents derived from sheet goods contribute to this Occupants move within the Hylozoic Soil structure hybrid economy. Some eight cubic feet of acrylic as they would through a dense thicket within a for- polymer, fifty pounds of copper wire, aluminum est. Microprocessor-controlled sensors embedded sheet and handfuls of specialized alloys are expend- within the environment signal the presence of oc- ed, while the expanded space formed from these cupants, and motion ripples through the system in materials occupies some four thousand cubic feet. response, pulling trickles of air through the mesh POSTHUMANIST RESPONSIVE ARCHITECTURE 649

spreading out in a narrow swath spanning a full city block. This assembly would create a shallow layer covering sterile ground, assembled as a deliberate- ly weak interconnected network to gradually evolve in response to situational parameters and human occupancy. Faint signal-lure lights, microprocessor- controlled burrowing agents and space-filling filter packs provide a matrix that harvests energy and accumulates stray matter to be eventually taken over by new weed-filled growth. The skeletal tripod-field comprises approximately one thousand unit-clusters. It will form a continuous lattice outfitted with faint signal-lure lights, microprocessor-controlled burrowing agents and space-filling filter packs. The 10. Hylozoic Soil, Montreal Museum of Fine Art, 2007 matrix accumulates stray matter and will eventually be taken over by new weed-filled growth. Similarly, the control system offers complexity in its behaviour while avoiding large centralized com- The construction is characterized by extreme econ- puting. The distributed arrays of inexpensive min- omy and minimal material use. Physical comput- iature microprocessors achieve coherent behav- ing circuits using distributed configurations harvest iours through their distributed communication net- trickling power and accumulate increments suffi- work. The intensive repetition of small information cient to emit small pulses of light and vibrations packets in the communication network and mass- at regular intervals. Vibrations are amplified by manufacture of miniature physical components in leverage and resonance in order to create tangible the physical sculpture are similar in their approach, and legible motion within automated mechanical offering a heterogeneous whole. burrowing elements, while significant multiplication and selective focus and amplification details The most recent installation within this series is provide legibility for the lighting elements serv- titled Basal Lamina, and is currently being proto- ing both as indicators of the system’s ‘health’ and typed for further development. This assembly at- as lures that encourage human proximity. Large- tempts to move toward an explicit relationship with scale movements generated by the beneficial hu- the natural environment within an urban site that man interaction, integrated with increments of contains passages of sod and pavement. Basal wind vibrations will further power the automated Lamina is conceived as a nearly-living artificial turf, burrowing functions. Human participation will also provide beneficial spreading of the lightweight filter material populating the structure, and ‘feed’ the matrix with small residues of organic matter car- ried in by air currents and thermal plumes cloaking each visitor.

The fragile, minimal physical skeleton and physical resonance-behaviours of this surface could serve as a counter-form to the surging activities of adjacent sidewalk and traffic circulation. Organic power sources embedded within the installation have a finite life and extremely constrained actions. A pattern of simple public contributions akin to medical therapy could foster faint conditions of collective cultural empathy. During the four month duration of the installation, the vinegar electrolyte with- 11. Basal Lamina, Champ Libre Montreal/Pratt Institute, in several hundred bladder units will be renewed New York, 2008-9: Detail view of part assembly by a pattern of weekly injections. These periodic 650 Re.Building

depletions and renewals of the organic battery on gaming practices and marketing paradigms, ex- will establish definite ‘lifetime’ intervals, gradually tending traditions of behaviourism established over shortened by the increased corrosion of the elec- the past half century of research in psychology and trode elements. This will be signalled by the light neurology. A central design practice that is estab- emitting diodes, whose patterns provide constant lished within emotion studies remains quite primi- indication of the system’s welfare. As the basal tive, preoccupied with individual figures, and facial matrix’s activity subsides, the process of natural gestures divorced from surrounding environments. growth takes over. Limited work relating to environments has, however, proceeded including universal colour schemes, tex- Further Steps tile patterns, and general ‘body language’ postural systems.Laban dance analysis offers a relatively rich From previous projects involving static, site specif- vocabulary for describing the quality of mechanical ic landscape-based field installations, the projects movement and for exploring novel control strategies. described within this essay have evolved towards The quality of motion will be classified in terms of the immersive interior environments that interact with main descriptors of Laban analysis including time, human occupants and that form active, accretive space, flow and weight.� Work on automated read- synthetic environments. Previous generations of this ing and generation of Laban notation for applications work were light-duty installations capable of general- in dance and in simulation� will provide support for ized kinetic effects. Close collaboration with mecha- this research, and context will come from work ex- tronics engineers permit a new generation of sculp- ploring the relationships between the dynamism of tures to emphasize subtle motion that approaches dance and architecture.� The work will draw upon a kind of mechanical ‘empathy’ connoting emotion. the evolutionary psychologist Paul Ekman, who developed the Facial Action Coding System which sys- Over the course of this next phase, several short tematizes emotional expression into ‘Action Units’, term goals will be pursued: networks and systems allowing labelling and recognition of emotions based composed of complex parts assembled into coherent on individual muscle movements.This accretive ap- artificial ‘organisms’, discrete mechatronics offered proach to muscular combinations has been translat- by shape-memory alloy actuator development, new ed into in computer-based recognition of emotions methods for analyzing and creating movement, using Facial Action Coding System metrics, demon- translation of movement data into digitally auto- strating that - basic emotional expressions appear mated mechanism design, innovative techniques to exist in all culture as innate and non-learned in- for creating large volumes out of small amounts of stincts. In turn, current research extends emotional material, implementation of digital fabrication and respsonses into a systematic understanding of ‘body advanced modeling, and simulation and visualiza- language’, where entire musculature and skeletal tion techniques. In next generations of this work, position is directly related to emotional stimulus and this expanded sensitivity will be further developed response. The psychologist Nico Frijda: has conduct- in terms of durability and field testing, supporting ed research into ‘action tendencies’ rooted within the intensive public interaction and exposure to the body, suggesting that emotions are broadly-based sun, wind and rain . The long term goals of this mental states which influence specific situational research suggest future building linings and skins processing, particularly constraining appropriate that can provide local mechanized reaction to subtle appraisals & actions. These sources will be used to changes in the building’s occupation. inform a general approach that attempts to embed emotion-connoting and affecting kinetic responses This work draws on existing work in the area of within immersive textile environments. mechanism synthesis and pattern languages.9 Tra- ditional approaches to understanding human move- I hope, by describing these projects, to provide ment is the starting point for investigation into notes that might serve as an emerging practice methods of coding movement quality into a suit- for interactive systems. In contrast to instrumen- able space on which a metric can be defined in or- tal systems that work in reliable service to human der to support distinct ‘emotion’ based sensing and domains, the basic relationship here is prosthetic, kinetic response systems. Design for emotion is a employing alien appendages to nature’s body. Pros- comparatively new practice that draws especially thetics are always accompanied by some tinge of POSTHUMANIST RESPONSIVE ARCHITECTURE 651

revulsion. An artificial heart causes the host body 9. Maletic, Vera. 1987. Body, Space, Expression: The to recoil and attempt to reject the intruder, no mat- Development of Rudolf Laban’s Movement and Dance Concepts. Walter De Gruyter Inc. ter how ‘good’ the addition is for the host’s health. 10. Badler, Norman I., and Stephen W. Smoliar. 1979. New burn technologies involving delicate nutrient- Digital Representations of Human Movement. ACM infused lattices that strengthen the skin and allow Comput. Surv. 11, no. 1:19-38. new skin to grow depend on drugs to mute the 11. Bernhardt, Daniel, and Peter Robinson. 2007. De- tecting Affect from Non-stylised Body Motions. Affective rejection impulses that we react with. A dynamic Computing and Intelligent Interaction. http://dx.doi. that integrates revulsion as well as attraction might org/10.1007/978-3-540-74889-2_6 (Accessed April 4, lead toward mutual relationships. 2008):Hartmann, Björn, Maurizio Mancini, and Catherine Pelachaud. 2006. Implementing Expressive Gesture Syn- thesis for Embodied Conversational Agents. In Gesture These projections are large, and translate into ac- in Human-Computer Interaction and Simulation,188-199 tion that risks violence. De Chardin’s goal of a ‘noo- http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/11678816_22 (Accessed sphere’ of collective consciousness accompanied by April 6, 2008).; Umino, B., J. S. Longstaff, and A. Soga. tangible collective sympathy remains a poignant 2005. Laban Motif of Algorithms for Automatic Genera- tion of Dance Sequences in” Web3D Dance Composer. utopian vision. Inevitably, a project that pursues 24th Biennial Conference of ICKL, London, August. synthetic collective consciousness is, no less than 12. Zhang, Shun et al. 2006. Implementation of a earlier transcendent reaches, utterly fraught. Yet Notation-Based Motion Choreography System. In these projects might, I hope, demonstrate certain Interactive Technologies and Sociotechnical Systems, 495-503 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/11890881_54 steps that engage the affects of emotion. These (Accessed April 6, 2008). terms imply steps toward paradigms for distributed physical environments pursuing ‘empathy’ embedded within the built environment. These environments might affect their inhabitants by caring.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The projects described within this paper are collaborations. Rob Gorbet, Engineering Director play a fundamental role. Sections of this paper appear in Beesley, Posthumanist responsive architecture: paradigms for interactivity, International Journal of Digital Media Design, Taiwan Association of Digital Media Design (currently in press)

ENDNOTES

1. Hensel, Michael Ed., Achim Menges Ed., Versatility and Vicissitude: Performance in Morpho-Ecological Design, Wiley, 2008 2. George Baird in The Space of Appearance, MIT Press, 1995 elegantly summarizes a century-long argument in the chapter entitled Instruments and Monuments. 3. Branko Kolarevic and Ali Malkawi, Performative Architecture: Beyond Instrumentality, Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2004 4. D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, On Growth and Form, first published 1917 5. Conrad H. Waddington, 1905-`975, embryologist and professor of animal genetics, University of Edinburgh 6. Buckminster Fuller, Geoscope proposal at United Nations, New York, 1962 7. Following project descriptions are derived from Philip Beesley, Hylozoic Soil, Riverside Architectural Press 2007 8. Antonsson, Erik K., and Jonathan Cagan. 2001. Formal Engineering Design Synthesis. 1st ed. Cambridge University Press.