We have looked at how resources shape our bodies and our environment.
We have looked at how our bodies and our culture have shaped our spaces.
Now let us look to how our technology and our tools continue to change our bodies and our environment.
In the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey, Kubrik transitions seamlessly between primitive and future tools of humanity.
In projecting a timeline of our endeavors past the present, we naturally assume necessary technological inventions in materials and processes. Humans have invented tools (another word for technology) to alter our environments. From tools that would help us colonize or build a physical environment, to those that would help us retreat into a digital one, perhaps none the less real. These tools influence our architecture, in terms of building capabilities, as well as building program. We are hoping to understand how and to what extent the tools we are developing will affect the way we live and what influence that has on our architecture. How will your program or your building design change in light of new technologies?
Consider it another way: what is the difference between using animal and body heat for warmth, mud insulation, high density foam insulation, fire, and mechanical heaters? How have each of these changed our spaces?
Consider too the difference between passive and active strategies (is one more high tech or low tech?) For example, the MELiSSA project, Biosphere 2, a living machine, and a natural ecosystem.
passive technology?
active technology?
What do new tools and new technologies mean for the way architecture and people interact? To what extent, if any, are systems completely automated or is there still human interaction and control? How does this affect program?
If we were to categorize the nature of the relationship of humans to technology, we might think of it in these ways:
- Technology/The Machine as Architecture/Surrounding Us (Smart House)
- Technology/The Machine as Body/Integrated Into Us (Wearables, VR, Body Extensions)
- Technology/The Machine as Object/ Partner/Identity (Robot, Companion, Equipment)
Part I: Research
We will all need to integrate some of these thoughts and ideas to see how they will alter our project, but first let's step outside of our own bubbles, and consider each other's projects for a few days and come back to a roundtable discussion on Monday.
- Gabe > Victoria
- Clara > Eugene
- Richard > Clara
- Jeremy > Jean
- Jean > Ana
- Ana > Jenny
- Jenny > Gabe
- Sarah > Jeremy
- Victoria > KwanPo
- Eugene > Sarah
- KwanPo > Richard
Part A: Try to summarize/explain your colleague's project in a few sentences.
(*hint* this is to help each of you answer the written portion of the Mars City Design Competition submission)
Part B: Consider the following matrix. In your colleague's project consider how these attitudes towards technology affect their program. Come to a discussion on Monday with a references of technologies you see, one for each area of the matrix that is related, that are something they could think about regarding their project. Try to consider if this technology (current or projected) might actually have an effect on the architecture and in what way.
(*hint* this is to help each of you answer the "references" portion of the Mars City Design Competition submission)
Part II: Design
Taking your colleagues thoughts and recommendations into consideration, now project the integration of technology into your own program. Does it change anything about your program? About the way you perceive the needs of the architectural environment? Or the way that your building is made/constructed?
Anticipating your Mars City Design Competition entry the format of this pinup will be slightly different:
A (3min) digital presentation of your research interests describing
mission objective/program/schematic organization
- technologies you are referencing and their influence on program
- [48X60 Board Vertical] Plan, Section, or Axo
- Program
- Resource/material flows / Networks (to scale)
- Circulation
- Scale and Form of Program Components including private, collective, and public spaces
- 3 [18X18] Image/Rending/Collage of human/technology interaction at private, collective, and public scales OR A VR Simulation of one space (360 panorama of Mars available here)
- [48X12] Timeline of human activities
- at human scale (what do people do on a minute, hour, day/sol basis?
- at planetary scale (what are activities/goals/purposes/tasks in weeks, seasons, years?)
Objectives
- Understand how technology and tools change or may change or impact architecture
- Gain exposure to new media for communication
- Understand/get a sense of how the space may feel (qualitative use of space)
Films
These films each consider the human relationship to tools/technology in a different way.
architecture?
body?
object?