responsive design studio

Resinance 2.0 is the successor of Resinance, realized six month after the first project. Its general system is building upon the initial installation with improved behavioural complexity and technical and material resilience. The project emerged from a student application to showcase the work at the 2013 ACADIA conference at the school of architecture, University of Waterloo, Cambridge, Canada.

While the main concept of the installation is similar to the previous one, e.g. responsive smart material elements, that change colour when physically touched and share the information with their neighbouring elements in order to develop a global emergent behaviour based on local interactions, several parts of the installation are significantly different.

Topology
The layout of the installation is changed to a linear arrangement consisting of ten clusters, each containing three elements. The clusters are linked wireless and constantly communicate their current state to a Master node, which compiles the information and gives it back to the respective module. Every cluster is sitting atop an acrylic base that both provides stability when the elements are moving and also houses the necessary electronic an mechanical components.

Sensing
The sensing capabilities of the individual elements are vastly simplified. While in Resinance piezo-vibration sensors are used to measure human interaction, in Resinance 2.0 a metallic mesh has been embedded into the polyester resin walls. The mesh, which was added during the rotational casting process, is used as a capacitive proximity sensor. This allowes visitors to interact with the modules all over their surface and makes them directly experience the change of temperature when touching.

Actuation
In addition to the shivering motion, which was improved by moving the vibrators from the side to a less obtrusive position at the bottom of the individual elements, a stepper motor is included, which slowly raises the centre of each cluster, when the elements have reached their peak temperature. Since due to both aesthetic reasons and in order to speed up the heating process the fans are facing inwards, the motion, which resembles a blossoming flower, opens the air inlets and hence triggers simultaneously with the cooling process. Moreover the colour change is drastically sped up by using two heaters per element instead of one.

Communication
The exchange of information between the individual clusters happens wireless. Custom designed shields are used to control the various electronic components, like heaters, temperature sensors, vibrators, motors, etc. The shields are attached to Arduino Fio boards equipped with X-Bee radios in order to communicate with adjacent clusters. A visual interface, which runs on a nearby screen, graphically displays every element, their current temperature, whether they are in a heating or cooling process, how often they have been touched and when the last touch has occurred. The elements not only have memory of their popularity, measured by the amount of touches, but also try to return to their initial calm state by gradually deducting points from their counter if not enough interaction happens. The speed of this process is largely depending on the popularity of the respective element.

The project was developed at the Chair for CAAD, ETH Zürich and has been exhibited at the University of Waterloo, School of Architecture, during the 2013 ACADIA conference.

Credits
Design and Material Research: Achilleas Xydis
Electronics and Interaction Design: Joel Letkemann
Collaborators: Demetris Shammas, Evi Xexaki, Maria Smigielska, Mariana Popescu, Nan Jiang, Yuko Ishizu
ACADIA support: Farzin Asad, Zak Fish, Connor O’Grady
Supervision: Manuel Kretzer

CAAD, 2013

international symposium on adaptive architecture
July 8th, 2013 / 9:00 – 18:00

Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design, ETH Zürich-Hönggerberg, HPZ Floor F

Speakers include:
Prof. Ludger Hovestadt (ETH Zürich, CH), Prof. Philip Beesley (University of Waterloo, CA), Prof. Kas Oosterhuis (TU Delft, NL), Martina Decker (DeckerYeadon, US), Claudia Pasquero (ecoLogicStudio, UK), Manuel Kretzer (ETH Zürich, CH), Tomasz Jaskiewicz (TU Delft, NL), Jason Bruges (Jason Bruges Studio, UK), Areti Markopoulou (IAAC, ES), Ruairi Glynn (UCL, UK), Simon Schleicher (Universität Stuttgart, DE), John Sarik (Columbia University, US), Stefan Dulman (Hive Systems, NL)

More info on the speakers, the detailed program, location and registration can be found on the event’s website: alive2013.wordpress.com

The symposium is free of charge however registration until July 3rd, 2013 is obligatory. Seats are limited. alive13.eventbrite.com

The event is organised by Manuel Kretzer and Tomasz Jaskiewicz, hosted by the Chair for CAAD and supported through the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Resinance is part of an ongoing series, exploring the potential use of smart materials in an architectural context. It was realized in March 2013 by the Master of Advanced Studies class at the Chair for CAAD.

The design of ‘Resinance’ was strongly influenced by the behavior of simple organic life forms, in particular the formation of cellular colonies. In its assembly it represented an ecology of functional units that could both work autonomously but also in coordination with their neighboring units. It consisted of 40 active elements that were gradually changing their surface color in response to human touch. While this slow transformation as such couldn’t immediately be perceived, each device had a second actuator, providing direct response through shivers and vibrations. Every four elements were connected through a control unit that formally resembled the rest of the objects but without the ability to change color. These units both choreographed the behavior of the particular cluster and transmitted the current state of each element to its neighbors. Therefore the tactile input not only changed the touched element but was transmitted throughout the whole installation in a networked, swarm like behavior.

more info: www.materiability.com

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

2nd WORKSHOP on SMART MATERIAL INTERFACES:
“Another Step to a Material Future”

Will be held during 2013 International Conference on Multimodal
Interaction (ICMI 2013: http://www.acm.org/icmi/2013/)

December 13th, 2013

Coogee Bay Hotel, Sydney, Australia.

http://smartmaterialinterfaces.wordpress.com

1. CALL FOR PAPERS
2. ABOUT SMART MATERIALS INTERFACES
3. SMART MATERIAL INTERFACES ORGANIZERS

1. CALL FOR PAPERS

Goal:
The objective of this workshop is to draw attention to the emerging field of smart material interfaces which spans the areas of design, engineering and architecture. These novel composites, which in some cases are already celebrated as the answer for the 21st. century’s technological needs, are generally referred to as materials that are capable of sensing the environment and actively responding to by changing their physical properties, such as shape, size and color.

The workshop aims at stimulating research and development in interfaces that make novel use of smart materials, and will provide a platform for state-of-the-art design of smart material interfaces. In order to establish a rich live demo session throughout the conference we want to particularly encourage the submission of research that includes physical live demonstrators and experimental prototypes.

Topic Keywords:
Smart material interfaces, reality-based interfaces, organic user interfaces, programmable matter, smart textiles.

Topics of interest:
We invite original contributions in a variety of areas related to interaction design and development of interfaces that makes use of SMART MATERIALS. Main topic of interest is the application of smart materials in designing and building interfaces that communicate
information to the user – or allow the user to manipulate information – using different modalities provided by the material’s properties.

– Reality-based interfaces
– Tangible Interfaces
– Organic user interfaces
– Programmable matter
– Electronic textiles, computational textiles, smart textiles
– Robotics
– Relevant developments in materials science, mechanical engineering,
chemistry, biological engineering, nanotechnology, electrical
engineering, textile engineering, and other fields, coupled with
thoughtful speculation about applications
– …

We strongly encourage submissions with related DEMO.

Important Dates:
Workshop papers submission due: July 22th, 2013
Author notifications: September 7th, 2013
Workshop camera-ready paper due: October 7th, 2013
Workshop: December 13th, 2013

Submissions:
The workshop solicits original and unpublished papers concerning Smart Material Interfaces. Authors should submit papers not exceeding 6 pages in total. Submissions must be sent in PDF using the ACM format (as indicated on the main conference page and here http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html) to the address: smi.submission@gmail.com

For up-to-date details on submissions please refer to the official Workshop site:
http://smartmaterialinterfaces.wordpress.com/

Accepted papers will be presented at the workshop. All the workshop papers will be included in a USB stick with all the other proceedings of the conference. They will be also published on ACM Digital Library with associated ISBN.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Please visit the workshop website.
http://smartmaterialinterfaces.wordpress.com

And the conference site:
http://www.acm.org/icmi/2013

2. ABOUT SMART MATERIAL INTERFACES

With the use of smart materials, SMI attempts to overcome the limitation of traditional and tangible interfaces. SMI focuses on changing the physical reality around the user as the output of interaction and/or computation as well as being used as input device. SMI promotes a tighter coupling between the information displayed and the display itself by using the tangible interface as the control and display at the same time – embedding the information directly inside the physical object. It uses the physicality of the object as a way to deliver information.
Utilizing smart materials’ properties, SMI can support cohesive interaction by maintaining both channels (input and output) on the same object of interaction. The interaction constructed in this way will grant the user a continuous perception of the object and of the output.

For more information refer to the site: http://smartmaterialinterfaces.wordpress.com/about/

3. SMART MATERIAL INTERFACES ORGANIZERS

Organizers:

Anton Nijholt, University of Twente, Human Media Interaction group, the Netherlands, a.nijholt@utwente.nl

Manuel Kretzer, CAAD, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich, Switzerland, kretzer@arch.ethz.ch

Andrea Minuto, University of Twente, Human Media Interaction group, the Netherlands, a.minuto@utwente.nl

Leonardo Giusti, MIT – Mobile Experience Lab Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, lgiusti@mit.edu

Program committee members:

Jason Alexander, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Huihui Wang, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
Wim Poelman, Delft University of Technology, Delft, NL
Akira Wakita, Keio University SFC, Fujisawa, Japan
Orkan Telhan, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
Dhaval Vyas, ABB Corporate Research, Bangalore, India
Patrizia Marti, University of Siena, Italy
Andres Lucero, Nokia Research Centre, Tampere, Finland
Kasper Hornbæk, Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, DK
Letizia Jaccheri, NTNU, Norway
Augusto Celentano, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy
Fabio Pittarello, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy
Federico Casalegno, MIT – Mobile Experience Lab Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

For contacts and other information: http://smartmaterialinterfaces.wordpress.com/

The materiability research network is a community platform, an educational network and an open materials database. It was initiated by Manuel Kretzer in late 2012 and emerged from a joint initiative between the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design, ETH Zürich and Interaction Design, Zürich University of the Arts.

Funded in a believe in unrestricted access to information and knowledge it is strongly driven by a community that finds equal inspiration in digital creation and physical making. This platform brings together architects, artists, designers, students, scientists and researchers who share a common fascination with smart, programmable materials and their potential integration into architecture and design to create softer, more dynamic environments.

The website forms a continuously growing database on a wide range of materials, provides in depth instructions and tutorials to self-produce these materials and promotes their assembly in temporary and speculative experimental projects.

By registering to this network you will gain access to the materials database and tutorials, profile information and the possibility to exchange with fellow members and are highly encouraged to share and display your work as part of the network or engage in discussions in the forum. Depending on your activity within the community your status will change and you can gain access to extra information and details. Certain projects might also get featured and posted in other categories.

Animated Textiles was a five-day workshop held at the Swedish School of Textiles at the University of Borås from Sept. 17th to 21st 2012.

Within this workshop we explored the combination of soft electroactive polymers with various lightweight textile systems to create animated surfaces, structures and assemblies. The workshop participants, both Master and Phd students, were split in three groups of four people each. After a generous introduction into the techniques of producing electroactive polymers, each group produced their own membranes based on iterative mutations of a previously defined working component. The necessary support frames were cut using a laser cutter. The components that exhibited the best behavior and strongest deformation were picked to become attached to textiles and fabrics in order to form animated ecologies of moving textile assemblies. At the end of the workshop each group had built a physical prototype which was then presented to a larger audience.

supervision:
Manuel Kretzer, Ivana Damjanovic

team:
Astrid Mody, Delia Dumitrescu, Felicia Davis, Una Baldvinsdottir, Joanne Kowalski, Inese Parkova, Emelie Johansson, Riikka Saarela, Christina Maschke, Stella Katsarou, Nilla Berko, Justien De Bus

more info

Phototropia is part of an ongoing series on the application of smart materials in an architectural context and was realized in April 2012 by the Master of Advanced Studies class at the Chair for CAAD, supervised by Manuel Kretzer.

It merges self-made electro-active polymers, screen-printed electroluminescent displays, eco-friendly bioplastics and thin-film dye-sensitized solar cells into an autonomous installation that produces all its required energy from sunlight and responds to user presence through moving and illuminating elements. The generated energy is stored in batteries below the platform and then distributed via microcontrollers to the respective elements.

Phototropia finds its inspiration in participative and transient systems, proposed by visionaries like Yona Friedman or Constant Nieuwenhuys paired with a naive curiosity for self-made (smart) materials and an aversion towards mechanistic kinetic systems. It is a proposal for an experimental architecture that can decay while actively being renewed, as a response to our times of tremendous globalization, increased connectivity and digital identity within our information based society.

special thanks to:
Luke Franzke, Florian Wille / ZHdK IAD
Paul Liska / EPFL LPI
Andrei Prutaneu, Agostino di Figlia / TU Delft ES group
Jorge Ellert / ULANO Corp.
Beat Karrer / Studio Beat Karrer
John Meschter / G24 Innovations

The Actuated Matter Workshop forms part of a recently started research initiative – a collaboration between the Zurich University of the Arts and the ETH Zürich’s Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design – that explores the application of smart materials in architecture with respect to their ability to transform architecture into an “Emotive Environment”, a space that relates to its inhabitants in an emotive and responsive way.

The focus is placed on the capabilities and limitations of materials themselves in generating kinetic, visual and acoustic feedback. Our goal is to endow artificial spaces with some of the qualities of a natural environment in which perceptual, behavioral, emotional and social processes are interrelated and arise from its intrinsic properties.

Natural environments grow, evolve and internalize the history of the actions and situations that occur within them, whereas technological systems tend toward perfection, predictability and permanence. The question arises on how we could incorporate aspects of organic systems within the new materials and new architectures?

The Actuated Matter Workshop took place at Zurich University of the Arts from July 25. – 29. 2011 and was co-run with London based Loop.pH design studio. During the workshop the twenty international participants developed a speculative model for membrane structures that exhibit properties of sensitivity, resilience, and decay.

By physically engaging with the behaviors of active materials, they experimented with the threshold between the electronic and mechanic, the analog and the digital. The workshop followed a do-it-yourself approach and led to the development of sonic, luminous and moving modules that populated and activated the environment. The main structure was based on a three-dimensional ecology of interlinked loops, made from optical fibers, that formed a lightweight system with enough flexibility to become actuated but sufficient stiffness to support a multitude of components.

The production of the active elements, electroluminescent screens, electro-active polymers and flexible audio panels, was strongly driven by the curiosity and engagement of an interdisciplinary team of participants who had little or no previous experience of working with such materials. The workshop showed that highly sophisticated materials and structures could be emerge through participatory and collaborative strategies, thus reflecting our goal of developing an alternative, less rigid architecture of the future as a more connected, interlaced, entangled, responsive and responsible world.

Lead Project Designers:  

 MA. Dipl.- Ing. (arch) Karmen Franinovic, Mag. Art. Florian Wile

Interaction Design group, DDE, Zurich University of the Arts

Mathias Gmachl, Rachel Wingfield

Loop.pH design studio

Dipl.- Ing. (arch) Manuel Kretzer

Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design, ITA, ETH, Zürich

Dr. Nat. Sci. Daniel Bisig

Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology, DMU, Zurich University of the Arts

Project Collaborators:     

Katrin Bächli, Urban Bieri, Szilveszter Buzasi, Allison Dryer, Luke Franzke, Laura Kaehr, Moritz Kemper, Roman Kirschner, Jorge Orozco, Barbara Peikert, Margrit Rieben, Maria Smigielska, Andrés Villa Torres, Silvan Zurbruegg,

Websites:                    

http://blogs.iad.zhdk.ch/emotiveenvironments/

www.vimeo.com/materiability