MSc Adaptive Architecture & Computation
Since 2008 I have taught modules offering architecture and design students the skills to build their own software and hardware with the goal of enabling new ways of thinking and practicing architectural research and design. In the modules I run on MSc Adaptive Architecture & Computation, fundamental principles of programming and electronics are introduced to students before a series of design projects are utilized to examine themes of communication, adaption, performance, and interaction.
(Above) AAC Student Marilena Skavara 2009
Examples of Work from the Digital Studio Module 2008 (Marionette Project)
AAC Student Agata Guzik
AAC Student Vlad Tenu
Examples of Work from the Digital Ecology Module 2009
AAC Student Kensuke Hotta Physical Game of Life 2009
Student Ritchie Jackson 2009
AAC Student Agata Guzik 2009
Example of Research & Design from the MSc AAC Thesis 2009
Marilena Skavara 2009.
MA Textile Futures & MA Industrial Design
Since 2007 I have been teaching at Central Saint Martins College, University of Arts London, as an interaction lecturer on two Masters Programmes; Textile Futures and Industrial Design.
MA Textile Futures
MATF Student Berit Greinke
The 21st century marks the beginning of a new textile revolution , and we believe it is smart, invisible, sustainable, ethical and poetic. Smart? The emergence of intelligent technologies such as conductive textiles, sensory fabrics, wearable computing, biomaterials, nanotechnology demand greater collaboration between science and design to transform textile design processes and products. Invisible? New fibers and finishings create textiles with invisible built-innovative functionality such as vitamin-enhanced fabrics, anti-stress fibre, solar-reactive yarns and composite materials. Sustainable? Increasing demands to consider sustainability necessitate more responsible approaches to textile design. Issues of production, waste and post-consumption drastically change potential design processes and outputs.Ethical? Demographics, globalisation, changing consumption patterns that impact on markets can be challenged by design. Poetic? Human need for inspiring aesthetics and comforting material persists. The aesthetic and emotional qualities of cloth and craft become even more relevant in a high-tech, high speed consumer culture.
MATF Student Chloe Albert winner of Apple Award for Digital Innovation
MA Industrial Design
MAID Student Bruno Taylor (2008)
The intention of the course is to create an environment of creative and critical experimentation and exploration in which students are encouraged to challenge not only the objects which are the result of the process of design, but the matrix of roles, responsibilities and relationships within which the designer might work.
MAID Student Sara Bellini 2007
Light Ecologies Workshop
3 Day Workshop held at TUDelft Architecture School, Netherlands. Undergraduate Students were introduced to principles of Cellular Automata to understand ideas of complexity coming from simple rules. This was followed by the construction of simple reactive circuits which were then combined to build an ecology of agents communicating through light.
Distant Earth Workshop
A Five month workshop by Ruairi Glynn & Christian Kerrigan with the support of Creative Partnerships at Our Lady Primary School, Fenton, Stoke-On-Trent, UK. The principle aim of the workshop was to explore and expand the ‘young architects’ understanding of space. Using a range of traditional design techniques such as drawing, model making and story boarding alongside new technologies and techniques including pressure sensitive video recording environments, telematic marionette performances and tangible interfaces, a class of 16 nine year old children explored space from the universe in scale, to the nano, from the 3Dimenional to the Nth Dimensional. At each stage they feedback into the workshops process leaving messages in the ‘Diary Room’ and through ‘Show and Tell’ sessions. Glynn & Kerrigan’s approach was to facilitate students own spatial exploration without predetermining the expected outcomes of the iterative fortnightly sessions. The final result of these collaborative design processes was a ‘floating city’ designed and built in an intensive final 3 day event.
Bio-Intelligence
“We will talk only about machines with very simple internal structures, too simple in fact to be interesting from the point of view of mechanical or electrical engineering. Interest arises, rather, when we look at these machines or vehicles as if they were animals, in a natural environment. We will be tempted, then, to use psychological language in describing their behavior. And yet we know very well that there is nothing in these vehicles that we have not put there ourselves.”
“It is also quite easy to observe the full repertoire of behavior of these machines–even if it goes beyond what we had originally planned, as it often does. But it is much more difficult to start from the outside and try to guess internal structure just from observation of behavior. It is actually impossible in theory to determine exactly what the hidden mechanism is without opening the box, since there are always many different mechanisms with identical behavior… A psychological consequence of this is the following: when we analyze a mechanism we tend to over estimate its complexity.”
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology p2 & p20, Valentino Braitenberg.
A strange animal like character is often the unintentional by-product of objects with the ability to sense, make decisions and act on the world. The Bio-Intelligence workshop celebrated this as a potentially powerful aesthetic and functional opportunity, exploring the design of behaviour in ‘intelligent’ textiles.
From the simplest bacteria, crustaceans, arachnids, plants and insects, right up to fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals; from individual creatures to whole social communities, we investigated how nature uses its ability to sense, think and act on the world. With this understanding we explored how the mimicry of bio-behaviour can inspire new design opportunities and the creation of ecologies of intelligent textiles communicating and interacting with each other and the world around them.
Seven Seven Seven – Workshop
A seven day intensive workshop bringing together Bartlett MArch design and MSc Architectural research students to build seven installations based on the seven dwarfs.
Following 2 days of rapid introduction to electricity, electronics, and programming students in groups of 3 experiment with a range of sensors and actuators to build objects and installations exhibiting particular behaviors triggered by human interaction.
Technologies examined included RFID, computer vision, digital and analog sensing, stepper and servo motor control, and rapid prototyping.
All of the final objects and installations were presented in an small exhibition in the Bartlett Lobby to test the public engagement with the work.
London: OpenFrameworks Workshop
In June 2009 I organised and supported a free public OpenFrameworks Workshop lead by Mehmet Akten, Marek Bereza and Joel Gethin Lewis which was hosted by University College London’s MSc Adaptive Architecture & Computation Programme which I teach on. This is intended to be the starting point for a number of workshops using OpenFrameworks with anand was run as an introductory session suitable for people with no “oF” experience but some basic understanding of scripting in Processing, Flash, etc.
Photovoltaic & Electroluminescent Textiles
A 3 day workshop introducing the concept of patterning with electrical energy, using light as the primary energy source with Bartaku.
Metabolic Sensory Network
Metabolism, in living systems, has two aspects: anabolism (which means building up), and catabolism (or breaking down). These processes, part of all living systems, carry a particular resonance with respect to present-day concerns about sustainable environments.
