Receptive Skins : towards a somatosensitive architecture

In architecture, the building skin is the primary interface for mediating the environment of the external with the internal. But today, this mediation is mechanical, deterministic, and static-often seeing the human as a generalizable and problematic input. With advances in material science however, there is great potential to disrupt these traditional manufactured environments of architecture and turn them into responsive mediated environments. What this thesis aims to explore is this idea of the receptive skin-a sensate and dynamic multimaterial interface for environmental mediation. This suggests that by departing from the view that buildings are static artifacts, we may instead begin to see buildings as organic, living entities. Through the development of a working prototype, this thesis explores how such an interface may manifest itself, through dynamic material composites, instead of mechanical and electronic means. The final prototype is a "proof of concept," a built example of this novel design methodology, which unites material performance with sensate technologies, as a way to enable new interactions between building and environment.

Department dc:contributor.department

Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Kapelonis, Chrisoula

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kent Larson.

• Program in Media Arts and Sciences ()

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119086

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/119086