Oculus - Winter 2015 - (Page 30)

©Ennead Architects in collaboration with Jones Studio and Unified Field; rendering by Atchain feature Architecture at the Digital Edge Technology is both transforming and becoming part of architectural design B Y e L i Ku s L A n s K Y W hether you imagine the digital edge of architecture to be a razor-thin or a wide amorphous boundary between the physical and virtual worlds, there is no doubt that digital technologies have changed architecture forever. In the mid-1970s, architects started using digital tools predominantly for computer-aided drafting. Forty-five years later, digital technologies are the primary means that architects use for creating whole new languages of spatial design. The digital edge of architecture is now a transitive verb in the design language of the built environment, acting as a grand "connector" eliminating boundaries between language, space, orientation, and time. Buildings enhanced with digital technology help people curate their journeys by intelligently tagging space with relevant and timely information. Social media, another factor, is influencing architectural design, where knowledge and data about a building and people's activities are not only stored, but also shared, distributed, and visualized in novel actionable ways. Integrating media into the built environment A case in point is the new Arizona Center for Law and Society (ACLS) at Arizona State University (ASU) in Phoenix. As the public perception of the legal system evolves, law schools are struggling with decreasing enrollments and fewer job prospects for graduates. At the ASU Sandra Day O'Connor College of 30 Oculus Winter 2015 Law, scheduled to open in 2016, Dean Douglas Sylvester had a bold vision - reinvent the traditional law school experience with a new modern facility designed with an openness aimed at celebrating the convergence of law and society. Through the seamless integration of innovative technology, the building's design aspires to facilitate interaction between students, faculty, the downtown community, and Phoenix's legal and criminal justice system. This new six-story, 260,000-square-foot complex, designed by Ennead Architects, used a parallel design process to fulfill Dean Sylvester's vision by bringing in Unified Field to develop the interactive media and content strategy in tandem with the architectural design. Unified Field came up with a flexible and responsive platform called the Pulse. The Pulse paints a real-time, dynamic, interactive picture of the user community as it moves through the building. It is accessed through a mobile app, interactive media walls, and large-scale outdoor displays, and tied together with an RFID tagging system and strategically-placed proximity sensors. These components constitute a digital wayfinding knowledge mapping system that will offer real value to users. The Pulse sends content to mobile devices to update schedules, guide navigation, and link people together filtered by their profiles. The Pulse is fed by sources such as expert profiles, 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