Introduction

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Interaction design offers an exciting opportunity in a world undergoing rapid technological transformations. It is deeply rooted in architecture due to its concerns with the activities of people and physical surroundings. This style of architecture lets people influence the built environment in a playful and participatory fashion. The word ‘interact’ itself is almost 200 years old denoting a reciprocal act. Its etymology is from the 15th-century Latin words ‘inter’ (meaning ‘among’ or ‘in the midst of’) and ‘actus’ (meaning to ‘impulse, set in motion or to perform on a temporary basis’). The term expresses an idea of one act having a direct effect on another and being in communication with one another. In an architectural context interaction is associated with responsive technologies, building automation, evolutionary spaces, interchangeability, communication, feedback systems, adaptation, connectivity, behaviour and ‘living’ architecture. Some relate interactive architecture to ‘intelligent environments’, ‘responsive environments’ and ‘smart architecture’ whilst several researchers and architects use it to describe structures, installations or buildings with computational technology. Interaction design fundamentally deals with the creation of experiences between human and object or human and technology. Additionally, interactive architecture has begun to recognise connections across incongruent fields including the performing arts, robotics, wearable computing and the perceptual sciences (including human visual perception, machine vision, image processing and human-computer interaction). This will become evident in the case studies presented throughout this essay. The volume of interactive projects that are emerging today means we need to amass the histories and theories of interaction design to determine how the subject has moved forward (or backwards) over the last decade and predict what it can offer in the future. 

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Catching up with history

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In the early 1960s, the work of cyberneticists, in particular Gordon Pask and Norbert Weiner, made significant progressions in the field of interaction design. Pask’s conversation theory interpreted spaces and users as ‘complete feedback systems’ (Fox, 2016). The Colloquy of Mobiles installation (designed by Pask in 1968) was one of the first works of art that communicated and reacted to its audience through computational technology. Architects including Nicholas Negroponte  (SEEK, 1970) and Warren Brody became absorbed in the potential of interactive technologies in the early seventies. The theories being established proposed that architectural environments should behave like humans, receiving information (the brain) and using that information to make instinctive responses (the muscles). However, the majority of their work stayed on paper, the most influential perhaps being Cedric Price’s Fun Palace designed in collaboration with Pask. However, as architects were developing their concepts, digital computation and interactive technologies were advancing at an increasing rate using sensory perceptions and human behaviour, but the architecture became secondary, with very little corporate interest. Very little happened in the 1980s with the exception of the Institut de Monde Arabe by Jean Nouvel, the first large scale adaptive facade. By the 1990s, the integration of newly available technologies (such as wireless networks and embedded computation) and ‘smart homes/ workplaces’ (Fox, 2016) became more feasible due to computer science. The term Intelligent Environments (IE) was fashioned to study interactive spaces with embedded information, bringing computation into the physical world but there was still very little architectural involvement. Though, we are now in a time when there is an increased aptitude for integrating interactive technologies into our environments as they are far more accessible to architects and their clients (through easy to use open source computing platforms such as Arduino). The current focus is on how the Internet of Things (IoT) can create a ‘connected world’ (Fox, 2016) extending into buildings, cities and global environments. 

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1960s - Buildings can LEARN

1970s - Buildings can LEARN and RESPOND

1980s - Buildings can LEARN, DECIDE and RESPOND

1990s - Buildings can PREDICT

NOW - Buildings can TRANSFORM and EVOLVE 

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Behaviour, Purpose and Teleology – Towards an open-ended dialogue to deal with unpredictable change 

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‘Good interactive art is the extent to which the interaction allows access to experience the artist’s intent’. Philip Beesley, 2010

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‘Behaviour’ can be classified loosely as adjusting with respect to our surroundings, whilst ‘purpose’ denotes a behaviour that is directed to a specific goal. One of the most common tactics used in interactive architecture during the latter stages of the 20th century was designing for a predetermined goal. This process involves input and output values, predicting all situations that our minds are capable of. For example, Cedric Price’s Fun Palace project proposed a ‘socially interactive machine’ (Mathews, 2006) but it was based on predetermined programmatic flexibility. One of the key shortcomings of predetermined interaction is the difficulty in using data on behaviour to determine the outcome of the architecture, as this type of measurement is not readily available and often contentious. Consequently, should we instead be focussing on non-predictive behaviour based design? This would allow the designers and participants to make decisions and alter the progression of the experience, creating an open-ended dialogue. Some interactive architecture over the last decade has moved closer towards conversational interaction that can adapt or respond to unpredictable change. This technology was exhibited in the kinetic sculpture Strandbeests by the Dutch artist Theo Jansen in 2011. The movements of the structure are uncontrolled and respond directly to the environment ‘feeding on the wind and fleeing from water’; subsequently the behaviour patterns of the machine are influenced. These behavioural techniques are also evident in Ruairi Glynn’s Performative Ecologies (2009) and Fearful Symmetry (2012). Although the suspended robot in the latter project is pre-programmed to react by ‘swooping down and fleeing up’ (Glynn, 2012) to the purposeful behaviour (playful movement or dramatic withdrawal) of the participants, the bespoke software is able to learn to adapt to different movements and new spaces it inhabits. The project does not simply react to human and environmental behaviours but interacts with unpredictable change, questioning the typical assumptions of designing using pre-choreographed behaviours. Glynn’s work can be labelled as teleological as it uses positive feedback to continually modify the active behaviour of the artwork. These social systems return to the concepts first explored by Gordon Pask in his Colloquy of Mobiles, however, the emergence of new technologies has enabled Glynn to extend these theories using genetic algorithms to ‘evolve’ (Glynn, 2012) the performances through responsive behaviour. 

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Yet Glynn’s work only begins to realise the full potential of progressive behaviour in architectural design as it does not deal with what architecture is made of; matter, programme, space, time and human relations. Though it was fabricated ten years earlier, the intelligent room ADA (2002) went beyond the interactive architectural exhibit by enabling visitors to become fully immersed in a human scale environment that depended on their presence. It was designed as an ‘inside- out robot’ and a living ‘artificial organism’ (Castle, 2012) that determined its own goal, ‘her happiness’, and relentlessly attempted to maximise it. The space ran continuously for 12 hours each day over 5 months, working to manage the density and flow of visitors by using its senses of ‘vision, audition and touch’ (Castle, 2012). Participants would be prompted by several incentives to advance to a certain feature of the space, ADA would then enter ‘game’ mode, encouraging visitors to ‘chase and capture’ an interactive floor tile. The ‘end’ mode prompted visitors to exit the room by slowing the music and darkening the lighting. Its key behavioural functions were tracking individuals and groups as they explored, identifying the more interesting participants (established by their willingness to respond to simple cues), grouping visitors using sound and light prompts and rewarding them by playing various games. The success of this exhibition lies in ADA’s ability to create a relationship between the user and the space as they collaborate to produce a unique, playful experience. Negroponte clarified that these types of ever changing systems only exist as ‘solid architecture’ (Anon., 2015) when time is paused. Once it has reconfigured, the final condition and the purposefulness of the system only exists within the participants’ memory. However, ADA was pre-programmed; therefore the levels of interaction within the environment were limited by the operational laws of the system implemented by the designer’s intent. The future should instead favour integrating end-user driven intelligence within architecture (tangible computing) that fashions an ‘open-ended conversation’ (Yiannoudes, 2016), rather than an autonomous performance, as it will permit users to fulfil their individual purposes within the design. This will allow architects to upgrade the current notion of universal spaces using technology that can make its own decisions to co-shape our built environments.

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Interaction design and post-humanism

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Post-humanism is a theory that pursues the acceleration of human evolution beyond its current form by means of technologies that enable us to overcome human limitations. Furthermore, it explores how technology can become a part of being human (a hybrid of machine and organism). Interactive architecture explores the co-evolution between the human body and our environment; a post-human event. It offers a condition where we can become united and more aware of our context. However, over the last decade interactive designs have not extended their relationship with the human body as they remain primarily ocular-centric in their connection. Though the spaces we create should be visually beautiful, a visual response is not the only connection that should be considered. To date, responses from interactive architecture rarely engage with the full range of human senses and are increasingly object-orientated, evident in projects such as Shapeshift (2010) by Manuel Kretzer, Lightswarm (2014) by Future Cities Lab and Balls! (2014) by Ruairi Glynn. Each of these case studies relies on visual perception through simple kinetic objects or surfaces. Lightswarm creates a cascading light display, responding to sound and movement to adapt the brightness of light modules. Balls! used time, noise, motion and internet traffic but this data was simply translated into vertical movement and colour. Does this use of computation in architecture go far enough or should we be using it to design atmospheres that have a deeper relationship with the human body? These connections can be found in the Hylozoic Ground project. Designed in collaboration with Philip Beesley and engineers for the 2010 Venice Biennale, it created a far more uncanny experience as it was a space where sight was simply a small part of a sensorium ‘that cannot be relied on in helping us read the situation’ (Beesley, 2010). The environment was visually extraordinary but the foremost sensations experienced by its users were ‘queasiness with a sense of vertigo’ (Beesley, 2010). Human interaction with the environment triggered breathing, swallowing and caressing motions that developed from ‘hives of valves and pores’ (Sheil, 2012) that pulled air, moisture and organic matter through its filtering membranes. These muscular style motions unsettled its occupants due to the feeling of being bordered by a living organism rather than a mere kinetic object. These sensations associated the project with post-humanism as it moved beyond the comforting categories of humanism we acquired from the Renaissance, compelling the users to appreciate the overlaying of body, machine and space.

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Moving beyond the architectural exhibit

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Over the last decade, a number of projects have been built at larger scales propelling the field of interactive design beyond the scope of the architectural exhibit where it has been tested and developed over the last 30 years. Similarly to exhibit-scale projects, architects are not expected to deliver interactive designs alone but are required to have enough knowledge to contribute to the discussions. ECO-29, the largest dynamic event space ever built by FoxLin and Brahma Architects in 2013, was a column free space designed to adapt very quickly to accommodate various scenarios within wedding ceremonies. The varying spatial settings were created using mechanised walls and ceilings enclosed in a cladding made of ‘movable fabric’ (Fox, 2016). The adaptive components were choreographed using custom made software enabling the users to determine the ranges and speeds of the motions. The architect’s confessed the difficulties they had in the design and build of a moving architecture of this size due to the lack of precedents and the economic restrictions. This project demonstrates the capabilities of using kinetic components within large spaces to facilitate programmatic flexibility, a theme similar to the un-built Fun Palace. Yet it does not demonstrate how to integrate evolutionary behaviour within a larger scheme, this is where progress can be made.

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Urban Interaction Design 

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‘Human life is interactive in which architecture has long set the stage. The city remains the best arrangement for realising human nature’. Malcolm McCullough, Digital Ground, 2004

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The making of our cities is too important to leave to architects and urban planners. The complex interactive theories that have emerged within the rapid technologisation of urban life over the last decade mean it is not their concern alone. The SENSEable City Lab at MIT therefore uses a multidisciplinary approach to their research, collaborating with ‘planners, engineers, physicists, biologist and social scientists’ (Ratti, 2016) to analyse and anticipate the evolution of the ‘real-time city’ (Ratti, 2016). This analysis led to the LIVE Singapore project in 2011 that developed an ‘open platform for the collection and distribution of real-time data’ (Ratti, 2016) on matters such as transport, rainfall and temperature rises. This data was then used to help improve the running of the city through matching taxi demand with supply and energy use with temperature rise by making it accessible to users. The main aim of this project was to allow Singaporeans to be more interactive with their environment and aware of how their city behaves as a result of their actions. 

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With the convergence of augmented reality technology (such as Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens) and 8k megapixel high-reality screens, how will we identify the cities of the future? As these technologies continue to improve, the city will become a far more complex and interactive place. Using video-mapping with 8k megapixel technology we can continually adapt city frontages to become hyper real interactive screens for various purposes. Over the last decade video-mapping has become more prominent with projects such as  Brick - Interactive Store Window by WelcomeInPeace and  the Interactive Display Window Concept by Gustaf Engstrom being used to entice shoppers. Additionally, augmented reality (AR) has the potential to form unique and personal public spaces by catering for the needs of individual users by means of infinite alternatives. It works by proposing an alternate reading to an existing truth using virtual layering. A public square could become a work of digital art for one, a Pokémon gym for another or a political environment for a third. One of the complications in AR technology is its ability to bridge between the digital and real space. A tangible user interface is now available to project images directly onto physical objects rather than using a conventional computer screen, a discipline named Spatial Augmented Reality (Bimber & Raskar, 2005). As Bimber and Rasker envisaged, today we possess compact, portable smart projectors which can create displays on surfaces within our environments that provide real-time feedback loops for object tracking. In 2014, Japanese artist Nobumichi Asai used this technology to design OMOTE, an augmented reality device that used ‘real-time face tracking and projection mapping systems’ (Wang, 2016). The machine was able to interact with the movements of the users face to continually update the projection on the shifting surface. The project demonstrates how the ‘reflective markers’, although visible on the face, can work in any light and on any surface. Though AR can reformat the spaces and frontages within our cities through endless interactive re-appropriations, it is expected to sacrifice the advantages of having a shared public space. How do we evaluate the social impact of this type of spatial interaction? How is it managed? 

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Social engagement

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In his book Digital Ground (2004), McCullough claimed that interactive technology can best help civilisation through the design of public spaces that engages the social realm and encourages social interactions. In 2007 Mark Garcia recognised ADA and Diller + Scofidio’s semi-realised Braincoat project (2002) as the unsurpassed ‘benchmark projects’ (Garcia, 2007) and that the potential of socially interactive projects was beginning to be realised. Since then there has been little advancements in the design of socially interactive architectures as the majority of work continues to deal with individual inputs to create a liminal response. Perhaps the most intriguing and forward thinking project over the last decade is Traces of Reality (2016) by the Interactive Lab at the Bartlett. Described as ‘the future of social virtual reality’ (Beaumont, 2016), the site specific installation explored the use of an interactive virtual environment with multiple participants at once able to experience the history of the Roundhouse in London. The two primary focuses were to merge real-time sensing of the users’ surroundings with the virtual elements and to facilitate social interactions within the space via headset displays. This project should be viewed as an initial piece of design research. Although it establishes the possibilities of multiple users in a single surreal augmented reality, the design of the virtual component fails to create a space for its participants to truly connect through a specific programme or event. 

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Conclusions – The future of interactive architectures and cities

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It is difficult to foresee how quickly interactive architecture will become a necessity to building design development and the city. Yet the case studies highlighted here illustrate that theories on interactive design are becoming an integral part of the architect’s education. However, it is evident that despite the increased aptitude for incorporating computational intelligence into our built environment, designers are often failing to demonstrate how these interactions can be tied into our lifestyles. For instance, in the projects Balls! and Windswept the connection between environment and machine is weak and does little to contribute to the atmosphere of the interior spaces. This raises questions regarding the most effective uses of these theories in practice. Some projects attempt to transform public squares whilst others influence the performance of a building’s façade. All, however, share the capacity to lure their participants to become active users, so that they become a part of the project. 

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While tangible interaction continues to be centred on the interfacing of objects (due to the ongoing appetite for galleries and museums to exhibit responsive installations), advancements in embedded computation has made it possible to extend these technologies into the scale of the building and the city. Equally important is that these requisite technologies are simple enough for designers to use in order to communicate their concepts. For example, the open-source Arduino platform has allowed designers such as Philip Beesley to understand the multiple levels of interaction that is possible in his work. Therefore, the number of new exciting ideas entering the field is increasing through the imaginations of the architects and designers. 

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There has been a noticeable shift away from the image and style of architecture towards a greater understanding of the behaviours and purpose of the spaces we create. However, collected data on human behaviour is often contentious and work and social trends are constantly changing. Architecture has always struggled to keep up. Therefore, it is important that we move away from designing for a pre-determined goal or interaction and use positive feedback systems to continually alter the behaviour of our environments as society changes. As yet, the value of interactive technologies as an active participant in our everyday lives has not been realised. The last decade has seen interaction design move beyond the architectural exhibit but often the responses remain focused on the kinetic object rather than its ability to evoke variable atmospheres within our environments. Although pre-programmed, ADA continues to be the most successful project due to its ability to control its own environment by managing the flow and amount of occupants within. Its sequencing is able to deal with crowd management through the exhibition, which is perhaps one of the most constructive uses of interactive technologies to date. Future uses of embedded computation must adapt our environments to the participant’s desires in order to help shape varied experiences. How might we envision a building or space that can amass an understanding of its users by examining their interactions, gestures, expressions and behaviour to respond appropriately? How might these interactive designs influence the way we inhabit our environments and change the way we live? Unfortunately it is too soon to tell as many projects remain research based because of insufficient corporate and public funding. 

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The way we understand the city is being altered as a result of digital information. The SENSEable City Lab at MIT is leading the way in researching the potential of real-time data to understand how cities are being used. This research will help us appreciate how new technologies can be used to redefine the city or as Carlo Ratti clarifies, how ‘the machine, the computer will become the city’ (Ratti & Claudel, 2016). Citizens are now able to recognise how their actions affect the way in which their city behaves. Will this closed feedback loop change how we live in and run our cities? Furthermore, it is clear that the capabilities of augmented realities will continue to be tested to determine how it can be best utilised to serve an urban context. Significant advances have already been made in enabling AR to engage multiple users for greater social interactions. However, AR is still finding its feet in the design industry and architectural practices are currently more interested in its potential to change the way they work and sell schemes to clients (as demonstrated by Greg Lynn at the 2016 Venice Biennale) rather than producing surreal virtual spaces for our cities. However, the next decade may see the mobile phone being obsolete, with interactive system such as Google Glass (and its foreseeable iterations) bringing augmented reality to the forefront, altering the way we view the city.

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Bibliographies

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Anon., 2015. Behaviour, Purpose and Teleology. [Online] 
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Beesley, P., 2010. Hylozoic Ground. Toronto: Riverside Architectural Press.

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Beesley, P., 2011. Hylozoic Ground: liminal responsive architecture. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge.

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Bimber, O. & Raskar, R., 2005. Spatial Augmented Reality. 1st ed. Massachusetts: A K Peters.

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Bullivant, L., 2006. Responsive environments: architecture, art and design. 1st ed. London: V&A Publications.

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Castle, H., 2012. 4d space: interactive architecture. Architectural Design (AD), 75(01).

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Image references

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Fig. 1 - Colloquy of Mobiles - http://www.asquare.org networkresearch/2008/the-art-of-gordon-pask

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Fig. 2 - Fun Palace Diagram - https://uk.pinterest.com/muifukman/fun-palace

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Fig. 3 - SEEK - http://cyberneticzoo.com/robots-in-art/1969-70-seek-nicholas-negroponte-american/

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Fig. 4 - Institut du Monde Arabe - http://www.archdaily.com/162101/ad-classics-institut-du-monde-arabe-jean-nouvel

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Fig. 5 - ADA - http://www.playart.org/viewimage.php?galleryImageID=1964

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Fig. 6 - Braincoat - http://www.dsrny.com/projects/blur-braincoat

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Fig. 7  - Peformative Ecologies - http://www.ruairiglynn.co.uk/portfolio/ performative-ecologies/

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Fig. 8 - Shapeshift - http://materiability.com/shapeshift/

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Fig. 9 - LIVE Singapore - http://senseable.mit.edu/livesingapore/press.html

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Fig. 10 - Strandbeests - http://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/blog/2015/07/24/strandbeest-boston/

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Fig. 11 - Hylozoic Ground  - http://thisisalive.com/the-hylozoic-ground-project/

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Fig. 12 - Fearful Symmetry - http://www.ruairiglynn.co.uk/portfolio/fsymmetry/

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Fig. 13 - ECO 29 - http://foxlin.com/portfolio_item/eco-29-interactive-wedding-hall/

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Fig 14 - Lightswarm - http://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2014/12/11/lightswarm.html

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Fig. 15 OMOTE - http://www.fubiz.net/2014/08/22/omote-real-time-face-mapping/omote-real-time-face-mapping5/

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Fig. 16 - Traces of Reality - http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/2016/we-are-now/traces-of-reality/