μ:) Microhappy

‘Ectoplasmatic Library’ was exhibited at ESA (Ecole Speciale d’Architecture) in Paris in 2010. Information gathered from visitors leads to a living, unpredictable, growing space. People’s behaviour around the installation make the water to drip, the grass to grow, the sugar to melt… the space to evolve through time.

Project by NaJa & deOstos
Project Team: Ricardo de Ostos, Nannette Jackowski, Samantha Lee
Interactive Design: Marilena Skavara

Video/Images: Samantha Lee

http://www.vimeo.com/6658509

Adaptive fa[CA]de is an emergent, adaptive building skin that aims to provide optimum light levels to the interior. Using the computational and behavioural characteristics of Cellular Automata coupled with Artificial Intelligence, it gradually learns how to use complexity towards explicit goals. Translating the analog input of the environment, as measured by a series of light sensors, to digital and again to the analog tilted panels formed by CA patterns, suggests that one way to adapt to the complexity of the environment can be complexity itself.

By deeply understanding and utilising the inherent ‘universality’ of several Cellular Automata, the resulting system minimises both the exhaustive calculations found in other responsive façades as well as the input from the environmental conditions. More importantly, as it learns from its own errors and achievements, it can anticipate and challenge its own future behaviour. The outcome is a kinetic, performative, beautiful building skin.

Adpative fa[CA]de was my final thesis’ project for the ‘Adaptive Architecture & Computation’ (Bartlett, UCL, 2009) with Sean Hanna and Ruairi Glynn as my supervisors. It was exhibited from the 8th of September till the 2nd of October in Digital Hinterlands Exhibition at Arup’s Phase 2 Gallery on 8, Fitzroy st, as part of London Digital Week

The project has been widely published in ‘Passages through hinterlands’ book, numerous design blogs and has been awarded with Europrix 2010 Quality Seal.

 http://www.vimeo.com/4927650

This is a self-replicating facade driven by simple computational rules found in formations in Nature called Cellular Automata. The facade is responsive to the light levels of its environment measured by light sensors. The physical piece consists of a grid of 15 panels running real-time according to the simulation of the whole finite grid coded in Processing 1.0. An Arduino board is used for pinning the light sensors and transmitting the values to Processing through serial communication.

Project created by Marilena Skavara for “Computing for Emergent Architecture 2″, AAC, Bartlett, 2009.

What is the rhythm of digital urban flow? This project was an endeavor to map the presence of Bluetooth devices triggering music samples from a music library and visualising its spectrum with different colours for each device. Additionally, an RFID reader was installed to enable more instant interaction with people touching their Oyster or student cards, triggering another set of music samples.

There were made two different installations: one in Bartlett foyer and the other at Print Room Cafe.

The program was coded in Processing 1.0 and Arduino (for the RFID reader).

Project created by Agata Guzik, Dimos Moysiadis, Vlad Tenu and myself for “Digital Space & Society”, Bartlett, 2008.

Using the camera of the computer and colour detection, one can play and dance with her handling the physical marionette which carries different colours at the end of its limbs. 

The marionette was created by Marilena Skavara in Processing 1.0 for the module of “Computing for Emergent Architecture 1″ of Adaptive Architecture and Computation, Bartlett, 2008.