Introduction
In the video today, I lead you through an exploration of responsive gradations, where your architecture assumes more adaptive compositions to engage with your occupants as they engage in varying activities. And just as your occupant’s engage in different activities, so too, can your architecture.
By taking on the example of a classroom’s adaptive architecture, and the various elements within it that must speak to the architecture — it is possible to evolve from a more static mentality to approach a more fluid way of orchestrating the space in time, for an increasingly customized student learning.
Transcript
00:08 Maria Lorena Lehman: This is Maria Lorena Lehman. In today’s video, I am going to discuss how Adaptive Architecture can be designed as more personalized for occupants through responsive gradations. And this can be achieved by first evolving from a more modular approach into something more fluid and transient, and using that as a way of thinking toward your design approach.
00:42 MLL: So within this diagram, there are various occupants. Here we have Occupants 1 and 2. And within our hypothetical situation here, each occupant has an activity. So we have Activity A for Occupant 1 and Activity B for Occupant 2. So if this was the design of a school classroom, Activity A, could be when a student listens to a lecture, and Activity B, could be when a student engages in group learning. And as such, different students need different things, even when they’re trying to achieve the same goal. So if you take learning for instance, two students may be trying to learn by engaging in group work, but each may need to engage in different ways. One might take notes while the other is more hands-on with their learning activity. So similarly, just as a teacher must allow various student learning styles, so too must the architecture. So the lesson here is that your architectural designs shouldn’t presume that all occupants achieve the same goal in the same way. In other words your architectural design should act as a vessel housing these activities as it provides your occupants with different choices and tools which give them a means by which to engage in their various activities.
02:28 MLL: So by going back to our diagram here, you can see that one of architecture’s primary goals is to harmonize, especially as it orchestrates all of these different activities and options for its occupants. So as architecture harmonizes it actually is providing different choices, where you can see here that Occupant 1 engaging in Activity A is presented with choice one, two and three while occupant 2 engaging in Activity B is presented with architectural choices four, five, and six. And as I mentioned before, this takes advantage of architectural design’s ability to act fluidly and according to occupant’s different preferences. In this case, it will help them to achieve their goal of learning where Occupants 1 and 2 are different students. But it’s equally important that as Occupant 1 engages in Activity A, choice two for instance, that it interrelates and coordinates with the simultaneously ongoing choice six that Occupant 2 engages in during Activity B. Thus as architecture cross references and orchestrates itself, it acts as a musical composition where instead of playing a one-note song, it uses multi-note chords to compose a space and all of its ongoing occupant activities.
04:17 MLL: So in essence, the architecture is harmonizing all of the different elements which provide choices and an outlet, so that occupants can engage in their activities in the best way possible that will best suit them and their personal preferences. So it’s important to remember that the overarching goal for you is to design for the masses but to never forget the nuances that make each occupant unique. So, just as the teacher within this hypothetical classroom uses her lesson plans to teach one topic to multiple people with different learning styles, so too must your architecture use its elements to serve its multitude of occupants with similar goals, but with different ways of achieving them. So for instance in this classroom, the furniture could be designed to adapt serving not only as seating but also as digital interface platforms, room boundaries. It could be used for playing or building, it could be used for storage, and the list goes on. The main idea is to provide choices that resonate with your occupants and with your overall architectural gesture. In the end here, the main lesson is to think beyond the one size fits all solution and to think more deeply about how your occupants actually go about achieving their goals. Then use your architectural designs to orchestrate multiple and complimentary ways in which they can engage.
06:12 MLL: Thank you for listening and watching.
