Image: oskay | Flickr

The smart home will be able to do a lot by way of automated systems that assist, guide, and educate building occupants. But what happens when such guidance is wrong? How will the smart home know it needs to correct itself? As such, adaptive architecture needs to allow for occupant override — so occupants can choose their own preferences, or can cancel an action.

The beauty of adaptive architecture is that it does have a predictive element, where architectural behavior can tune itself toward occupant needs and goals in real-time. However, there are moments when occupant preference, characteristics, or upcoming need should be able to be inputted into the rule-based system that makes up a smart building. After all, the smart home can become smarter not only because of its engagement with its occupants, but also because it allows for occupant input in a variety of ways.

Smart homes can use sensors to gather data about occupants to help the architectural environment make the most informed decisions it can about how to best help occupants. From the information that it gathers, patterns can be analyzed, and then behavior can be emitted that engages occupants. But, this behavior must be useful for occupants as they experience a given smart environment.

Smart Home Control Points: Beyond the Keyboard

Thus, adaptive architecture calls for a two-way dialogue between architecture and occupant — where each learns from interaction with the other, and where each gets better over time because of that interaction. It seems that smart homes will need to have control points where occupants can communicate with the architecture in a variety of ways.

But remember — such control points don’t have to be communicated using a keyboard and mouse. They can be conveyed through voice, physical gesture, or the movement of everyday things, for example. Thus, smart home design should account for control points that can override, further inform, or correct decisions made by the adaptive architecture. In this way, a building that morphs over time, as smart buildings do, can adjust themselves to personalize their effects for given occupants. After all, the goal for the smart home is to refine its accuracy over time to help occupants meet their goals in the safest, healthiest, and happiest ways.

Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

While the above photograph isn’t of a building (it is a metro sign), it suggests what may lie ahead for urban architecture. What if your building could communicate with observers in entirely new ways? Your architectural exterior skin could announce or respond to changes in weather, urban events, or even changing trends made available through the internet. Suddenly, your building becomes a beacon — that perhaps behaves differently from day to night.

To Apply This Strategy, Ask Yourself:

Should my building communicate with exterior observers about changes in the weather, urban events, or even about what is going on inside? How can my building add value to its urban context by announcing or responding to such changes? And how will such communication affect those inside the building?

Image: Paul Bica | Flickr

At the outset of your architecture project, you have the most leverage. Changes you make at this point cost less, and testing out variations of your creative vision early on will help to ensure that your building project is the best possible solution for your client and its future building occupants. But that is not all — a well thought out creative vision will also help your building project to survive the various phases of review by client, boards, and committees. Thus, your creative vision is what will guide design decisions throughout the design and review process so your building concept doesn’t get chiseled away as the project goes on.

When an architect lacks a well thought out creative vision, the entire architecture project suffers. Not only will such a building lack in its functionality and beauty, but the cost and quality of the project will suffer as well. You see, creative vision is about solving for your building’s concept with an eye toward how that concept will look, feel, and behave — not only once newly built, but also long after it has been built. Also, creative vision is about understanding how a design will impact its occupants experientially. By understanding the effects that a building should have on its occupants, a creative vision can be born — giving design life and inspiration to an otherwise boring and purposeless project.

Improve Your Creative Vision in 3 Steps

Creative vision is important for architects to develop because, without it, your building project will suffer. So, what are some steps to help you develop and fine-tune your creative vision?

• Step 1) Carry-Out Design Iterations: By exploring and refining your design ideas, you will hone in on the best design solution by which to base our creative vision.
• Step 2) Analyze Your Body of Work: By making each project you undertake better than the last, your creative vision for architecture projects should improve — see if there is anything that has been missing or that can be done better within your previous projects.
• Step 3) Research Future Trends: By understanding how architecture is evolving, and how cultures and technologies are changing, you can refine your ability to come up with great creative visions. Stay on the pulse of where architectural, cultural, and technological issues are headed.

As you can see, developing the skills and talent to come up with incredible creative visions is not always easy — but with practice and some thought, an excellent creative vision can boost your architectural project, giving you much needed leverage early on. The three steps listed above are only the beginning — be creative with finding new ways to inspire, spark, and research your design visions.

Image: Jeremy Levine Design | Flicker

Emerging technology is now able to monitor an environment’s conditions — to alert occupants should certain qualities change: like temperature, light, noise, or humidity. Such technology is being called a “CubeSensor” in that it acts as a monitoring device to help occupants regulate their surroundings —- after all, slight changes in temperature, light, or even noise can drastically affect an occupant’s performance. (1)

Such innovations, like the CubeSensor, are a step in the right direction. But, I must ask, how we can push such innovations further. For example, what if an innovation like the CubeSensor could do more than monitor and send alerts to occupants about their environment? What if such an innovation could also detect patterns and correlations between occupant behavior and their surrounding environmental conditions? In doing this, environments can tune to occupant need — finely matching occupant activity with appropriate environmental conditions.

An investment in the CubeSensor seems minimal compared to the benefits that it would provide. Imagine being able to fine tune your surroundings while trying to work, exercise, cook, or even sleep. Each activity may call for slight adjustments in environmental quality — adjustments that the next version of the CubeSensor may help to communicate. Thus, such innovations can actually boost occupant performance — particularly when taken to the next level.

Reference:
Stone, Zac. (2013) This Indoor Weather Station Will Make Your Workplace More Productive. Fast Company.

Image: toprankonlinemarketing | Flickr

As interactive architecture gives way to adaptive architecture, it becomes important to understand how a more responsive space impacts its occupants. That is, does it make decisions for them? Or, does it provide choice to get occupants to think more carefully about their own decisions? Perhaps, the adaptive architecture can decipher when to do each — giving occupants the best of both worlds.

You see, as a designer of adaptive architecture, you may not want your design to do everything for your occupants. There are some things that occupants either like to do, or need to do, themselves. For example, technologies integrated within an adaptive architecture might suggest ordering food from the grocery store; however, it is ultimately up to the occupant as to which exact food to buy. Allowing for occupant choice in this case takes into account occupant mood, taste, and budget.

So, as you design with new interactive technologies, think about whether they make their occupants think. Do they remove decision-making from the occupant? Or do they strategically get their occupant to think smarter about the decisions they make?

Remember — by getting an occupant to think smarter, you could be encouraging behavior change with your design. Suddenly, your design is helping its occupants to make more informed decisions, and this can lead to happier and healthier quality of life.

When working to create your architectural design presentation — how do you communicate the benefits of your design to your client? Do you simply rely on your design model to explain how the design will look? Or do you use it to explain the positive value that your client will get out of inhabiting your design?

You see, you can be strategic about the way you use your presentation design model when communicating with your client. You can use it to show how their needs and goals will be met. For example, if you are designing an office building, you can depict how ceiling height will play a role in triggering either more abstract thinking or more detailed thinking among employees. In other words, you can use your architectural design model features to demonstrate how your designed space will function.

The elements that you incorporate within your design model matter, as does the story you tell with your architectural presentation materials. Each rendering or physical model you create acts as a “snapshot” in time of your design. So, you want to be certain that you are choosing the best “snapshot” with which to communicate your design vision.

With your design model you can depict how your occupant’s story will unfold within your designed space. In fact, you can show how a space can change over time, if you use more than one rendering, for example.

So, the key is to highlight your occupant’s narrative within your architectural design model. They will better understand how your design vision fits with them, and they will better understand how that vision will bring them value.

Often, it becomes difficult to explain to clients about the merit of a particular design feature. Often, this is because the client cannot visualize how that feature will bring value to their needs and goals. As an architect, you can make this connection for them through your presentation materials. Tie together the link between your vision and their goals.

To do this, your architectural design model should go beyond the way your architecture will “look”, to further explain how it will function for clients. By using this sort of mindset framework, you will be more strategic about selected the best vantage points of your design to present. You will also know how to convey the importance of architectural features to benefit your occupants. And you will better understand how your client’s concerns can be overcome through your design.

So, use your architectural design model strategically. Go beyond how your design will simply look, to also explain how it will function and uplift quality of life for your occupants. Your design vision will be that much easier to get approved or selected. Additionally, you’ll be clearer about how to best solve for your client’s objectives — making your designs the perfect “fit” for your given occupants.

Image: seier + seier | Flickr

Often, an architectural rendering is about capturing a moment. And that moment is meant to communicate to its observer something deeper behind that architecture. In particular, the lighting within a given rendering becomes quite revealing, as it sets the scene and brings life to materials. You see, light and shadow help a rendering to express itself. In fact, the following is a list of the various ways light and shadow help renderings to communicate:

• Time of Day
• Geometric Form
• Materiality
• Depth / Distance
• Texture
• Transparency
• Reflection
• Ethereal Quality

Overall, the lighting expressions listed above can be used to make a rendering richer — where it communicates a lot of information about an architecture. Yet, as you work on a rendering that conveys meaning, it becomes helpful to ask yourself:

“Is what I’m trying to convey more instructional or poetic?”

Renderings can be used to convey the construction of your architectural design — the “how to” or the assembly of parts. And when this is done with a rendering, lighting is all about clarity. In other words, the rendering comes to life as the meaning behind the construction becomes apparent.

Renderings can also be used to convey the poetics of your architectural design. This type of rendering aims to capture the “feel” of an architecture — the architectural experience. In fact, it can be described like this: Have you ever looked out of a window at the exterior, and been able to perceive of the outdoor temperature or time of day without looking at a thermometer or a clock? If so, you could likely do this because there were certain exterior lighting cues that your senses picked up on (even from behind a glass window). Well, the same is true with your rendering — you are providing lighting cues for your observer, so they can “feel” your architectural space.

Certain lighting cues may include the color of the light, the intensity of the shadow, the length of the shadow cast, or even the direction of a light beam. Keep in mind, that there are infinitely more cues — and these make all the difference when it comes to conveying meaning with your rendering.

So, the questions now become: What are you aiming to convey with your architectural rendering? How will you use light (and other cues) to convey that meaning? And is it more important to express a poetic moment, or to clarify instructions?

Keep in mind that your rendering can always aim to do both — be poetic and instructional. Yet, to do so will require a keen eye toward designing with lighting and the cues that it emits. Be aware of what your lighting is expressing, being certain that it does not contradict the true nature of your architecture. In this way, your renderings will communicate what you mean — the vision behind how your design is to be built and experienced.

Do you ever design while you work on your 3D models? And have you ever stopped to think about what that model is telling you about your design? In other words, is it giving you all of the information you need to assess whether your design is unfolding in the way that it should? Of course, the model is heavily biased toward the visual sense — so it helps you to understand factors like lighting and materiality. But what about the other senses? How do you understand how your design will sound or will feel to the touch?

When designing architecture, it is important to understand how your design will impact its occupants through their senses. Is a space going to be noisy and loud? Is it going to feel cold or rough to the touch? You see, 3d models can be used to get a sense of your design before it is ever built. They give you the opportunity to make corrections, play with better ideas, and see how all of the pieces and parts come together. 3D Modeling allows you to “feel” your architectural space in real-time so that you can make changes on the fly.

So, when you are engaged in designing through your 3D model, be sure to think beyond the visual. Consider how that model will sound, will feel to the touch, and will smell once it is built and inhabited by your building occupants. Now, there is a lot to consider while designing — you must remember such factors like building codes, client program, your own design goals, and even material limitations. For this reason, I advise you to make the most out of your 3D models — think about what you can do with them to help make your design better.

As such, the following is a list of five ways to use 3D modeling to your advantage while you design —- to help you understand your design more fully while it is in the design stage, giving you time to make those corrections, come up with better ideas, and to use those materials more fully. Use each of these techniques to push your designs to the next level using 3D modeling.

1. Element Interaction: Show an element that occupants will interact with and develop a prototype to see if that interaction will flow smoothly.
2. Immersion: Use CAVE-CAD or other immersive tools to virtually get inside your model. You can use this to communicate your design to your client, and to see if spatial characteristics are being realized in the manner that you hope.
3. Acoustic Modeling: Use your model to create an acoustic sample of what the sound will be like within your space.
4. Material Samples: Reference your material samples to make certain you are capturing their “feel” — not just visually, but haptically as well.
5. Animation: Create an animation of your model to ensure proper circulation and orientation for building occupants. For example, a design can use landmarks to prevent occupants from feeling lost.

When designing your architecture, be sure to think strategically while modeling. Don’t just use your 3D model to copy your design into a new format without refining it for the better. 3D Modeling is an opportunity to see and “feel” your design in new ways — so you can make continual improvements, and so that you can communicate your best design ideas.

Image: jurveston | Flickr

Technology is moving into the wearable realm — where it will be built into the things we wear like glasses, watches, clothes, and shoes. And this brings with it many advantages like anywhere information that is presented at just the right moment. Greater personalization will also emerge as such worn-devices target their user’s preferences, habits, and behaviors. All of these advantages of wearable technology will change your building occupant. They will be more informed, more self-aware, and more connected. In fact, they will even connect to their surrounding environments in new ways.

The key is for the architecture to make sense of new occupant interactions. As their wearables help them to live healthier and happier lifestyles — the architecture should do the same. In other words, architecture and wearable technology should work together to help occupants reach their goals.

In the article entitled 3 Ways to Make Wearable Tech Actually Wearable, it is stated that such technologies need to be both meaningful and beautiful for the user. (1) This is interesting, as beauty ties into personalization — where the technology becomes an extension of the user, and must express their style or “sense of beauty”. Also, the information that such wearables express to their user must be of value, having direct meaning for them in their life. Both meaning and beauty must exude from such technologies (unless they are hidden), and as they extend their reach into their surrounding environment — meaning and beauty should reflect as well.

Thus, designing architecture for occupants that use wearable technology means that your architecture will gain vocabulary by which to communicate with occupants. The key is to understand what information to extract from wearables, as well as to know which information to send to them. Just as many technologies will be connected, so too will the architecture. Thus, it will be up to the designer to coordinate engagement, interaction, and change.

(1) Darmour, Jennifer. 3 Ways to Make Wearable Tech Actually Wearable. Fast Company.

Image: Frankie Roberto | Flickr

The in-between spaces that remain within urban areas often pose many challenges for designers. Such spaces get left to form dangerous alleyways or corners that repel people. Also, such spaces do nothing to support their adjacent buildings — from a sensory design perspective. Urban space that is “left behind” often becomes unused, simply existing as wasted space — in other words, a missed opportunity.

That’s why it is wonderful to see projects like the one built at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital. This aural installation takes advantage of what positives the space exudes, and uses those to its advantage to yield more than the sum of its parts. You see, in the in-between urban space (between two buildings) the installation called the Lullaby Factory serves to create music. By integrating instrument-looking horns and pipes, the installation exudes sound (and even song). And the best part is that the installation uplifted an otherwise doomed urban space into a special, uplifting, and engaging space.

Urban space sensory installations that coordinate with their adjacent architectural environments can really help an area — by giving more engagement, safety, and enjoyment to its visitors. Such sensory installations can also be interactive: where visitors can work either alone or in a group to create amazing sounds, visualizations, or structural configurations. Such installations create design nodes within urban spaces, and such nodes can serve many functions.

You may ask: How does an installation help the architecture which it resides next to?

Sensory installations can serve to bring in more building visitors. They can also serve to “prepare” visitors for entrance into a neighboring building. Or they can serve to socially gather people together — as they may work together within an interactive installation. They are a great way to draw attention to an urban area — to make it vibrant again.

Don’t let unused forgotten space detract from your project. Instead, find ways to enhance your project because of it. And keep sensory installations in mind, for they are a great way to add uniqueness, vibrancy, and beauty to your design. After all, unused urban space, when designed for properly, can become quite the magnet that engages occupants by peeking their curiosity. Through their senses, such installations can be playful, beautiful, and even educational — so, keep them in mind as you strive to revitalize an urban area, or bring design ingenuity to a new one. Don’t ignore those in-between spaces, for they can make or break your design over time.