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AA Athens Visiting School 2014: Students Challengethe Static Built Environment with Kinetic Haze

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Overview of the Interactive/Kinetic Archetype. Image Alice Mangoyan

The Architectural Association Visiting School in Athens, as part of the AI research agenda,has continued its investigations to challenge the static built environment with its 2014installation entitled Kinetic Haze. The project investigates the possibilities of architecturalmodeling via scripting, digital fabrication, and large scale installations.

This years investigation follows the theme of the previous years work entitled Cipher City:Recharged, in which the creation of complex form-making systems resulted in thediscovery of interactive design patterns. Following their discoveries in 2013, students inthis years program further investigated kinetic and interactive architecture in their newstudy entitled Revolutions. After a series of design ideas were developed by smallergroups of students, the teams collaborated to create the final prototype Kinetic Haze inless than five days. Read on after the break to learn more about the project.

This interactive installation seeks to redefine the concept of the architectural pathway.Standing at 2.5 meters tall, 1.2 meters wide, and 4.5 meters long, the structure is made ofwooden frames and elastic strings wired with motion sensors and actuators. The pattern ofthe woven elastic cords is designed to affect the visual perception of the viewer andrespond to their movements.

The life-size prototype bears the behavior signature of that of a primal organism. When aninitial user appears, the structure is put into a hostile state in which its flexible muscle-type strings vibrating nervously, blocking the entrance. When a second user appears theprototype shifts into a friendly mode allowing the two users to walk into the structure andinteract. Time and light are also utilized to augment the perception of space in thestructure. Vivid flickering lights encourage the users to move out of the structure after aperiod of time and the overall experience promotes communication between the usersexperiencing and those viewing the prototype.

Kinetic Haze was the result of a combination of ideas from five different groups at the AAAthens Visiting School. To learn more about the individual work by the students to developthe prototype, read their descriptions and see the gallery below.

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20 SEP2014by Evan Rawn

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10/29/2014 AA Athens Visiting School 2014: Students Challenge the Static Built Environment with Kinetic Haze | ArchDaily

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Fibrous Light Projections. Image Alexandros Kallegias

Digital Simulation of the Interactive/Kinetic Archetype. Image Alexandros Kallegias

Lighting Patterned Paneling. Image Alice Mangoyan

4fan: (Katerina Bali, Ismini Epitropou, Efthymia Kasimati, Maria Velaora): Aspired toexpand the human perception of space, 4fan team develops frameClouds; aninteractive system that allows the user to engage in a play with the built pathway. The

10/29/2014 AA Athens Visiting School 2014: Students Challenge the Static Built Environment with Kinetic Haze | ArchDaily

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Model renderings. Image The Oscillators

View through the Interactive Archetype. Image Alice Mangoyan

frameClouds design follows a tessellation pattern based on the division of triangles.The division pattern is analysed and three strategic intervention points are chosen.These points are used to place air-fans in order to form different fields of interactionwith the user. The material system consists of plastic bags which are following thetriangulated pattern. Due to their flexible, transparent and unconstrained characteristics,plastic bags are chosen to fulfil the selected grid. They allow light to go through, givingeventually a gradient visual bumping effect. The air-fans are activated by sensing theusers presence. The bags inflate and deflate and the space is converted from a straightcorridor to an experience of refined limits and augmenting duration as the user is drawnto occupy an ever-changing space.

HMN (Hazem Halasa, Dimitra Askouni, Nessma Al Ghoussein): HMN team creates amodel that is characterised as Communication through Separation. The concept entailsa transformative separation between two people through the structure. A barrierentangling the passageway endeavours to create a kinetic distinction that allows theusers through to the other side without the element of visual communication with oneanother. It plays on the notion of needing another individual without every knowing whothey might be or how they might complement them in means other than passing throughthe structure. It is necessary to keep the users separated in order to heighten thisexperience of interacting with the unidentified and emphasising the under-rated notion ofdependency. The interpretation of the passage manifests itself in a barrier that is slitinto horizontal components that deform as the barrier compresses/expands. Thesedeformations would sometime allow the exposure of parts of the users, hinting/teasingthem into trying to guess their partner, but never fully revealing one another. The lineardivision complements the triangular reading of the structure, and also leads the usersinto using the passage to guide them in a linear direction forward.

10/29/2014 AA Athens Visiting School 2014: Students Challenge the Static Built Environment with Kinetic Haze | ArchDaily

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Overview of the Interactive/Kinetic

Archetype. Image Alice Mangoyan

View through the Interactive

Archetype. Image Alice Mangoyan

Fibrous Light Projections. Image

Alexandros Kallegias

Lighting Patterned Paneling. Image

Alice Mangoyan

Structure Assembly via Scaled

Prototype. Image Alice Mangoyan

Constructing in Triangles. Image

Alice Mangoyan

Digital Simulation of the Drawings in progress . Image Concept fundamentals . Image

Purple_Haze (Daphne Dimopoulou, Michail Tavladorakis, Christina Bali): Inspired bymateriality, Purple_Haze team proposes a system of elastic strings attached onto thepathways structure. The placement of the strings is arranged perpendicular to apersons walk through the pathway, bridging the two opposing sides of the model. Asthe person enters the path, the prototype shifts from its initial phase to the secondphase in order to welcome the user within. Sensing devices transform the dormantarchitectural piece into an active system; mechanical motors lift up the strings, whoseflexible materiality allows them to stretch, thus opening up the path visually.Purple_Haze successfully combines the sophistication behind an Arduino controllerwith the natural characteristics of stretchy springs to form an interactive architecturalmodel which is driven by the human presence and which is affecting the humanperception of space.

The Oscillators (Konstantinos Sfikas, Anastasia Verteouri, Eirini Stolidou, NikosKourniatis): Redefining the concept of the architectural pathway, the Oscillators teamcreates the Nervous Corridor. This interactive passage archetype is divided into a totalof five zones; each zone has a different reaction to human presence. According to apersons distance from the edges of the pathway, the model moves from a relaxedstate to a tense state. On its material characteristics, the Oscillators have testedvarious textile systems; from pleated fabric to allow movement, to elastic transparentmembrane and thread-covered triangulated structures. The materiality allows for a moreanimalistic behaviour when triggered by the motors as it is flexible and has a phasedifference on its transformation. Approaching the models edges triggers anunpredictable behaviour of the textile system while the central zone is considered asthe safe friendly zone. Soft and chaotic oscillation occurs while the user travels fromone side of the pathway to the other.

Wave(X) (Maria-Eleni Bali, Zoi-Dafni Arnellou, Catherine Berki): The creativecombinatory approach of various material systems together with the intelligent use ofthe Arduino electronic microcontrollers enables the invention of the human-scaleinteractive pathway made by Wave(X). The prototype is put in action at the moment auser passes through it by deforming its malleable fabric surface. The physical modelconsists of wooden fixed beams, wooden moveable vertical elements and a malleablemetal net attached on the wooden structure. The interaction takes place by sensingmovement within the pathway. Horizontal rails start to move inwards and outwards thusdeforming the metal net attached onto them. A perfectly synchronized motion of therails creates the feeling an enclosure that follows the user walking through the pathway.The smooth movement of the rails followed by the smooth net recreate that of a wavetravelling through space and matter accompanying the person moving within.

10/29/2014 AA Athens Visiting School 2014: Students Challenge the Static Built Environment with Kinetic Haze | ArchDaily

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Cite:Rawn, Evan. "AA Athens Visiting School 2014: Students Challenge the Static Built Environment withKinetic Haze" 20 Sep 2014. ArchDaily. Accessed 28 Oct 2014.

Interactive/Kinetic Archetype. Image

Alexandros Kallegias

Wave(X) Wave(X)

Models sketches. Image Wave(X) Systems diagram. Image 4fan Proof of concept . Image 4fan

4Fan Team Presentation. Image

Alice Mangoyan

Concept applied in 1:1 scale . Image

4fan

Barrier Visualization. Image HMN

Conceptual diagrams. Image HMN Simulation via processing code .

Image HMN

Informative action diagram. Image

Purple_Haze

Arduino setup . Image

Purple_Haze

Analysis diagram. Image

Purple_Haze

Model renderings. Image The

Oscillators

Reaction mechanism diagram. Image

The Oscillators

Model testing. Image The

Oscillators

10/29/2014 AA Athens Visiting School 2014: Students Challenge the Static Built Environment with Kinetic Haze | ArchDaily

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