Oculus - Winter 2015 - (Page 28)
feature
How Big Data is
Reshaping Architecture
W
©August
hen French director Jacques Tati imagined
the future of Modernist architecture for his
1958 film Mon Oncle, the house he designed and
built for the set came embedded with technologies
that seemed to bring the house itself to life. Lights
flashed when a steak was ready to be flipped. Buzzers would sound for any number of reasons. And
an automatic garage door - then, a novelty - would
knowingly welcome the family's car as it moved up
the driveway.
Though the villa was meant to be open and flexible - tout communique! as Madame Arpel would
repeatedly say - it ended up determining much
of the family's behavior, forcing them to respond
to the house's prompts. This sense of entrapment
takes a literal turn when the husband and wife get
trapped in the garage by that automatic door meant
to make modern life more convenient.
Nearly 60 years later, what was once a cinematic
parody has become something of a reality. Technologies embedded in architecture - often silently,
invisibly, and immersively - have begun to reshape
some of the fundaments of architecture.
28
Oculus Winter 2015
The "Internet of Things" is well-suited
to be the app for architecture
B Y J o h n g en d A LL
By the very fact that it is made with things -
walls, doors, windows, stairs, corridors, etc. - architecture has always conditioned human behavior in
such a way that the world becomes understandable
through a building itself. To turn the key on an
apartment door, or to fire up the heater of a weekend house, or to open a window when it gets warm,
or to close it when it gets loud outside, is to respond
to the environment in a directly haptic way, mediated through architectural elements. Increasingly,
though, architecture is being made not only with
things, but also with products known as the "Internet of Things" - those physical objects linked to a
network and able to transmit data.
Look mom, no hands
Take the August Smart Lock, for example. Designed
by Fuseproject CEO Yves Béhar, the device stands
to do away with the metal keys that tumble around
in pockets and bags, and so often get misplaced.
Though there is a tangible object - a discreet aluminum cylinder that works with standard deadbolts
- the project transforms the physical experience
of handling keys and opening doors into a digital
process invisibly carried out through networks. Using a phone-based app, users can control access to
locked spaces, whether it's a matter of opening the
door for a house cleaner or dog walker, or letting
out-of-town guests come and go as they please.
Most transformatively, because the system is linked
with a phone's network, including its place-based
data, doors can be made to automatically unlock
when an authorized user approaches.
The lock is just the beginning. Fuseproject
designed August to work with HomeKit, Apple's
family of "smart" home products. With these, elements of domestic architecture become controlled
by preprogrammed settings and external data sets.
Individual preferences like wake-up times can induce changes in lighting levels, HVAC settings, and
appliances, closely orchestrated throughout a 24hour cycle. Even variables not directly controlled
by a user - a change of weather, for example - can
prompt windows to close and external shades to
retract based on those external stimuli.
Technologies
embedded in
architecture - often
silently, invisibly,
and immersively
- have begun to
reshape some of
the fundaments of
architecture.
(left) The August Smart Lock,
designed by Yves Béhar of
Fuseproject, uses a phonebased app to control access
to locked spaces.
Reinventing Architecture: Design in a Digital World
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Oculus - Winter 2015
First Words Letter from Two Presidents
Letter from the Editor
Center for Architecture
One Block Over
Opener: Practical Attitudes
ICE in the River: Cornell Tech’s Center of Connectivity
Restoring – At Least Virtually – One of England’s Greatest Lost Buildings
At the Corner of Past and Present
The Design-Fabrication Dynamic
How Big Data is Reshaping Architecture
Architecture at the Digital Edge
3D for the Defense
Thinking Beyond the Flat Page
In Print
51-Year Watch
Last Words
Index to Advertisers
Oculus - Winter 2015
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