I argue that the experience of architecture, the delight and wonder of finding oneself in beautiful places and spaces resides both in highly designed interactive spaces and events and in spaces from which close functionality has departed or in which close functionality was always transient. I describe the latter as a-functional spaces and places. The combination of transient functionality with a-functional spaces and places is a rich and challenging future for architecture. This paper is an attempt to suggest representations of the way that observers make sense of a-functional spaces and places and representations and models of the way that architects might design them.

The suggested model is not based on an understanding of any one particular space and place. It is derived from Gordon Pask’s description of his understanding of an aesthetically potent environment. The resulting type of architecture is, in principle, similar to both the highly designed architecture and vernacular architecture of the past.

An extreme example is that given by Evans in his description of the architecture of the 15th and 16th century palazzo, where corridors and spaces off them hardly existed, where spaces where all “ en suite” and activity was supported by furniture. The incorporation of “slack” in the design of these spaces and places is critical to their long-term success.

Stephen Gage’s lecture:

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Classical Ballet is oriented towards the stage center. Modern developments like Forsythe’s Ballet are multifocal, and they raise the question how different foci can be connected, having in mind that they in turn comprise of connections. This “global/local” problem reappears in brain research but can only carefully be adapted to embodied and communicative situations like those architectures are decisive and necessary for.

Another analogy can be found in business administration: Open Innovation strategies implement cooperations beyond a company’s borders, e.g. with customers or suppliers, as well as cross-departmental cooperations (e.g. between Engineering and Sales). These relations cannot be organized in a conventional way, but a conception of communication has to be rather “architectural”.

Michael Steinbusch is an urban planner by Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. He is currently assistant for Prof. Gunter Henn, Design of Industrial Buildings, Dpt. of Architecture – Center for Knowledge Architecture, Technische Universität Dresden. Doctorate in Architecture, Universität der Künste Berlin. Dissertation: The Text as a City. Linguistic Pragmatics in Conversation about a City Region.

Michael Steinbusch’s lecture:

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Architecture is engaged in a radical rethinking of its material practice. Advancements in material science and more complex models of material simulation as well as the interfaces between design and fabrication are fundamentally changing the way we conceive and design architecture. This new technological platform allows for unprecedented creative control over materials design and production. This development is central to the emergence of a more sensitive approach to design. From the very small to the very large, the imagination of performative materials that are engineered in response to highly defined design criteria are challenging the traditional boundaries of design and representation. Performative materials can be structurally differentiated designed in response to a variegated load, materially graded responding to change in programme or property or computationally steered incorporating actuated materials designed for state change and environmental response. Hyper specified and designed, what they have in common is that they are developed in response to particular criteria by which the strength, structure, elasticity or density of a material can be devised.

Mette Ramsgard Thomsen is an architect working with digital technologies. Through a focus on intelligent programming and ideas of emergence she explores how computational logics can lead to new spatial concepts. Mette’s work is practice lead and through projects such as Slow Furl, Strange Metabolisms, Vivisection and Sea Unsea she investigates the relationship between computational design, craft and technology. Her research focuses on the Digital Crafting as way of thinking material practice, computation and fabrication as part of architectural culture. Mette Ramsgard Thomsen is Professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, where she heads the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture [CITA]. During the last 5 years has successfully built the centre that now includes 14 active researchers and research students.

Mette Ramsgard’s Lecture:

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Swarm simulations model the coherent movement of a large groups of animals. They represent a classical category of multi-agent systems that rely on principles of self-organization to give raise to a variety of emergent phenomena. Accordingly, swarm simulations can serve as generative mechanisms for the creation of autonomous and responsive artworks.

The presentation will introduce two research projects that are conducted at the Zurich University of the Arts. These two projects explore artistic applications of swarm simulations and place a particular emphasis on issues of interactivity and multimodal feedback. In the context of these research projects, several interactive installations and dance performances have been realized. Some of the conceptual, technical and artistic and aspects of these realizations will be discussed.

Daniel Bisig is a senior researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the University of Zurich and the Institute of Computer Music and Sound Technology of the Zurich University of the Arts.He is active as scientist and artist and has realized several interactive works for installation and performance. The simulation of biological behavior forms a central underlying commonality in his works.

Daniel Bisig’s lecture:

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Although Vitruvius’s treaties included clocks, waterworks and mobile war machines; architecture is often understood to be an art of space, not of time. Architecture’s traditional role has been the spatial backdrop to social interaction and performance: In the 20th Century, Price’s ‘Fun Palace’, Archigram’s ‘Instant City’, and Fisher’s various ‘Staged Architectures’ challenged this axiom, imagining and constructing architectures that were active kinetic participants in their own right. Increasingly architects enabled by computational technologies are creating spaces that can engage actively within social and performative interactions.

To have a motive, is to have reason behind your behaviour, so how our built environment saturated with computation can sense the world, and make decisions about its behaviour will be discussed.

To be motive, is put behaviour into motion, so I will present my kinetic installations and discuss their context in the long history of architectural automata and the rise of robotic architecture today.

Ruairi Glynn splits his practice between the production of public art installations, teaching, curation and writing.  He is a Lecturer in MSc Adaptive Architecture and Computing and MArch Architectural Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London and MA Textile Futures and MA Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins College, University of Arts London. His blog www.interactivearchitecture.org is the largest online resource dedicated to the territory between interaction and architectural design. He is regularly invited to lecture, run workshops and exhibit his interactive art works internationally, receiving prestigious awards including at the 11th Annual “Concurso Internacional de Arte y Vida Artificial”, Madrid Art Fair. and the ‘European Top Talent Award for Digital Media’, Europrix. He has organised and curated over a dozen conferences, symposiums and exhibitions all centred on the driving influence computation is having on design and research. His latest event www.fabricate2011.org will be held in London in April. For information go to www.ruairiglynn.co.uk

Ruairi Glynn’s lecture:

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As starting point Ruairi characterize kinetic architecture into three distinct conceptual modes of behaviour.

1. Automatic. Single choreographed behaviour following a linear arrangement from beginning to end.

2. Reactive. Multiple choreographic behaviour following non-linear arrangements, triggered by stimuli.

3. Interactive. Un-choreographed behaviours formed through exchange between participants.

Ruairi’s lecture was divided in three parts. The first one where in a mater of introduction he reviewed several inspirational projects from simple time-based interactions to adaptive systems. In the second part a more theoretical basis was elaborated, concepts as Attention, Animism, Perceptual Causality and Puppetry are the basis of his research as an Interactive Architect. In the last part he presented some students projects from the Bartlett Master of Science programme.