Sentient Matter: Towards Affective Human-Architecture Interaction
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Date
2015-09-30
Authors
Yiming, Wang
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Waterloo
Abstract
Interactive design has been embedded into every aspect of our lives.
Ranging from handy devices to architecturally scaled environments,
these designs have not only shifted the way we facilitate interaction with
other people, but they also actively reconfigure themselves in response
to human stimuli. Following in the wake of interactive experimentation,
sentient matter, the idea that matter embodies the capacity to perceive
and respond to stimuli, attempts to engage in a challenging arena that few
architects and architectural researchers have ventured into. In particular,
the creation and simulation of emotive types of interaction between the
architectural environment and its inhabitants.
This ambition is made possible by the collaboration of multiple
disciplines. Cybernetics, specifically the legacy of Pask’s conversation
theory, inspires this thesis with the question of why emotion is needed in
facilitating human–architecture communication; why emotion appraisal
theory (P. Desmet) within psychology supports the feasibility of an
architectural environment to elicit emotional changes on its participant as
well as the possibility of generating a next-step response by having the
participant’s emotive behaviors observed; and why movement notation
systems, especially Laban Movement Analysis (a movement rating
scale system), helps us to understand how emotions can be identified
by motion elements that signify emotive behavior. Through the process
of decomposing movement into several qualitative and quantitative
factors such as velocity, openness, and smoothness, emotions embodied
in motion can be detected and even manipulated by altering those
movement factors. Moreover, with the employment of a Kinect sensor,
live performance can be analyzed in real time.
Based on the above research and inspired by the Kinetic sculptures
of Margolin, the final product of this thesis is the development of a
prototype that translates human movements that are expressive of
emotion into continuous surface transformations, thus making evident
how such emotive states might be transcoded into an architectural form.
In this process, four typical emotive architectural expressions—joy,
anger, excited, and sadness—are researched. This thesis also documents
three virtual scenarios in order to examine the effect of this interactive
system. Different contexts, kinetic types, and behavioral strategies are
presented so that we may explore their potential applications.
Sentient matter outlines a framework of syntheses, which is built upon
the convergence of embedded computation (intelligence) and physical
counterpart (kinetics). In the entire process, it considers people’s
participation as materials that fuel the generation of legible emotional
behaviors within an architectural environment. Consequently, there
is potential for an architectural learning capacity coupled with an
evolving data library of human behavioral knowledge. This opens doors
for futuristic designs where the paradigm shifts from “What is that
building?” to “What is that building doing?”
Description
Keywords
Interactive architecture, Kinect, Emotive architecture, Laban Movement Analysis