Floor, Come and Embrace Me!
Ellen Yi-Luen Do
Abstract
College of Architecture
In this paper we describe the vision and efforts toward
Architectural Robotics, a Smart Living Environment in
which the built environment is responsive,
reconfigurable and transformable, ubiquitously
embedded with sensors and actuators, to support
everyday happy, healthy living in the forms of things
that think, spaces that sense and places that play.
Human-Centered Computing
Program, School of Interactive
Computing, GVU Center
& Health Systems Institute
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332 USA
ellendo@gatech.edu
Keywords
Architectural Robotics, Ubiquitous Computing, HumanCentered Computing, Interactive Computing,
Healthcare, Interaction Design, Modular Robotics
ACM Classification Keywords
H.1.2 User/Machine Systems, H.5.3. Group and
Organization Interfaces, I.2.9 Robotics, J.4 Social and
Behavioral Sciences.
Introduction – a smart living environment
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
UbiComp 2009, Sep 30 – Oct 3, 2009, Orlando, FL, USA
Soothing music playing in the background, it's time to
enjoy moonlight. You wave at the window and the wall
extends and turns into an open balcony. You step onto
the balcony and notice that you are actually in the
middle of a storm, and the driveway to your house
raises itself few inches up to allow the rapid water flow
into the rain barrels at the garden. The reason you
haven't noticed the weather is perhaps due to the glass
of wine in your hand, but more likely because your roof
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uses the solar power collected in the morning to
activate the smart material in the siding, responds to
wind and rain, redistributes the load, and provides the
best environmental conditions inside the building, so
you hardly notice any severe weather change. The
living building envelope of your house knows your
preferred temperature setting, opens and closes the
various louvers to control cooling and ventilation. It
changes the lighting according to the background music
to suit your mood. You are pleased that your living
partner, the smart home is taking good care of you. On
your way back to your room, you trip over the chair
and lose your balance. Before your head hits the
ground, the floor rises up to hold you. It then gently
helps you sit down and reclines the chair for you to
rest. The chair monitors your heart rate and skin
temperature while you catch your breath and regain
your strength. It automatically alerts your physician or
caregivers if your health condition worsens, and turns
itself into a vehicle to take you to the emergency room.
Architectural Robotics, in this instance, in the form of a
smart home, is more than a lifestyle partner, it is also a
lifeguard, and a physical environment that knows and
responds to you.
This vision is no longer a science fiction. The age of
architectural robotics is upon us. What does it mean
when we have architecture that is robotic – when it can
sense the needs and behaviors of the habitants, then
plans, adapts and modifies itself to perform different
household tasks, or to transform building forms or even
the neighborhood characteristics?
Living Machines
The notion of an architecture machine for living is not
new. "A house," stated Le Corbusier, "is "a machine for
living in" [12]. Eastman's Adaptive-Conditional
Architecture includes "a sensing device, a control
algorithm, a change mechanism, and a control setting"
[5]. Negroponte [13] described in his Soft Architecture
Machines that a "responsive architecture" is an
environment that takes an "active role," initiates
changes "as a result and function of complex or simple
computations" but also "knows me" and the context it
is in. Archigram proposed an entire neighborhood could
relocate and move with the economical fluctuations and
lifestyle changes in the form of a Walking City [8].
Recently we have seen artists and designers
experimenting with expressive or responsive building
skins. For example, Ned Kahn's Articulated Cloud
(Figure 1 left) for Pittsburgh's Children's Museum and
Wind Portal (Figure 1 right) at San Francisco
International Airport BART Station [10] illustrated how
a façade or screen made with thousands of plastic
squares or metal disks could be animated and changed
dramatically with the weather or the air currents
generated by passing trains.
Figure 1. Kahn's wind-animated building envelope: Articulated
Cloud (left) and Wind Portal (right) [10].
Hoberman Associates installed motorized window
panels with Adaptive Fritting [9] at Harvard Graduate
School of Design that can modulate between opaque
and transparent states. As shown in Figure 2, shifting a
series of fritted glass layers creates a graphic pattern
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that alternately aligns and diverges. The moving dots
provide controllable transparency to control heat gain,
light, views and enclosure.
cube always consists of one small and 6 large building
block (1x3 + 6x4 =27 = 3x3x3). Roll the two colored
dice and put aside the two building blocks (one large,
one small) with the same color as the top faces on the
dice. No matter which two building blocks are put
away, the remaining 7 building blocks can always be
assembled to make a cube!
Figure 2. Changing dot patterns in Adaptive Fritting [9]
The Dynamic Façade of Giselbrecht's Kiefer Technic
Showroom [7] demonstrated how each window can be
adapted individually to changing conditions and needs
of the occupants. Or a program can change a building
exterior constantly to open or close windows and to
create shades of various types continuously (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Dynamic Façade of Keifer Technic Showroom [7]
Inventing Futures
Roll the dice and rebuild the wooden cube! The Babylon
Master Builder's Puzzle Cube is consisted of 2 colored
dice, 7 large building blocks of 4 dice, and 2 small
building blocks of 3 dice (Figure 4). Each building block
has a different color and different shape. A complete
Figure 4. The Babylon Master Builder's Puzzle Cube
Wouldn't it be fun to be able to roll a dice and
reconfigure our buildings and spaces? Rolling dice to
control building form may not be practical, but the idea
of interactive architecture is worth exploring. We also
don't have to constrain our building to only be in the
shape of a cube! Besides experimenting with dynamic
building skins and facades, can we apply similar
principles to other architectural characteristics (e.g., 3D
form or spatial configuration)? Shall we apply the
creative tinkering and play instinct [4] in puzzle solving
to engage in the design of our built environments?
Alan Kay was quoted saying that the best way to
predict the future is to invent it [11]. For the past
decade my studio laboratories at several different
universities have explored the themes of adaptable,
responsive and interactive architecture, or the idea of
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Architectural Robotics [17]. Below we briefly describe a
couple projects to illustrate the extent of exploration
and the need for further development.
Responsive Architecture
The Digital Animation Museum [3] project explores the
notion that architectural spaces and forms can be
influenced by ubiquitous and wireless information
technology to provide flexibility in spatial programming.
The building experience can be manipulated in a variety
of ways to interact with and respond to visitor interests
and preferences. Each unit space in the museum can
automatically reconfigure itself to form space and
change the exhibit display by identifying the preference
and behavior of the viewers. In this way, buildings and
visitors can collaborate to produce a unique and
individualized experience of the visit and the space.
structure columns. The diagram illustrates variation of
paths through the museum taken by different visitors.
If for example, an urban plaza has a similar grid plan
layout so that each of the unit square is the size of a
floor tile and each tile block is instrumented with a
spring-tilt mechanism [14] so it could go up and down,
and lock at different height positions, we can then push
up and down different unit tile blocks to reconfigure the
plaza to accommodate different occasions such as
seating for intimate conversations, family picnic
gathering, or a tiered stadium concert seating. With
Architectural Robotics, the plaza could be selfconfiguring based on the context by sensing behavior
patterns or direct instructions from the people.
Robotic Weaving
The Flex M project [6] explores the idea of using
physical or tangible interface to control and reconfigure
the building form. Figure 6 shows squeezing physical
interface deforms unit shape parameters and affects
changes of the whole 3D geometry of a building model.
Figure 5. A unit space, the floor plan grid, and different paths
through the building in Digital Animation Museum [3]
Figure 5 (left) shows a 3D view of a reconfigurable unit
space in which partition and display walls are
changeable to enclose a room with variable numbers of
units. The floor plan (top right) shows a grid system in
which different size rooms can be formed between the
Figure 6. Changing 3D geometry by deforming in FlexM [6]
Structures of building envelopes can be a fabric woven
with modulated variable surfaces and shapes achieved
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by overlapping identical elements on a grid [2]. For
example, variations of complex double curvature
surfaces can be derived by the repetition of a series of
identical elements (e.g. flat panels) and the movements
of the fastener grid points as shown in Figure 7.
Employing modular robotics techniques, an
architectural space, or an architectural robotic
structure, can cycle through different structures to
accommodate different activities such as an espresso
stand during the day and an entertainment room in the
evening. The occupant can rearrange the blocks with
their remote control to create new configurations, save
them, and even trade designs with others.
TransDorm [15] is a convertible multi-purpose twoperson dormitory unit that supports transformation of
sleeping quarter into living, study, or a place to play
and entertain. Figure 9 shows that elevated beds,
desks, cabinets, sofa and media wall, etc. can be
arranged to accommodate different activities.
Figure 7. Variations from grid point distance change [2]
Transformer Architecture
The goal of Architectural Robotics is to meet human
needs and comfort. Espresso Blocks [16] are selfassembling building blocks that build dynamic
structures (Figure 8) such as a live/work espresso
stand that can respond to the occupants' desires and
needs and transforms itself throughout the day.
Figure 9. Different spatial arrangements in TransDorm [15]
Figure 8. Self-assembling Espresso Blocks [16]
Care On Rail [1] extends the functionality of a hospital
ER or OR into an acuity-adaptable room by providing
mobile, sharable medical resources mounted on the
ceiling sliders (Figure 10) to eliminate equipment
clutter that hinder care and operations. Caregivers can
choose sliders from different equipment zones, adjust
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the slider height and location, detach or connect
different instruments (e.g., masks, hooks, operating
lamp, monitor, defibrillator or ultrasound machine) as
needed for different setup, operation and maintenance.
[4] Do, E. Y-L., Gross, M. D. Environments for
Creativity - A Lab for Making Things. Proc. Creativity
and Cognition, ACM (2007), 27-36
[5] Eastman, C. “Adaptive-Conditional Architecture.”
Design Participation, Proc. Design Research Society’s
Conference, 1971, Academy Editions, (1972), 51-57
[6] Eng, M., Camarata, K., Do, E. Y-L., Gross, M.D.
FlexM: Designing a Physical Construction Kit for 3D
Modeling", International Journal of Architectural
Computing, (2006), 4 (2), 27-47, Multi-Science
Figure 10. Care On Rail, adaptable equipment sliders [1]
[7] Giselbrecht & Partner, Dynamic Façade, Kiefer
Technic Showroom, Austria (2007) http://www.earchitect.co.uk/austria/kiefer_technic_showroom.htm
What Else?
[8] Herron, R., Harvey, B., A Walking City, in
Archigram 5 (1964).
To create structures composed of dynamic materials
like Espresso Blocks, or to operate transformer
architecture like TransDorm or Care on Rail, we need
interfaces that are easy and intuitive. To specify a
desired design form, perhaps one can demonstrate by
stacking up the blocks, and a planning algorithm can
automatically generate a rule set to produce that form.
To transform a living space or a patient room, perhaps
multi-modal inputs such as voice commands and
gestures, combined with the identification of the
context and the past experience sensed by the
environment, different rule sets could be selected and
run on the physical and robotic architecture.
References
[1] Al-Emam, F., Kuo, C-L., Masse, D. Care On Rail:
Extendable Adaptable Sliders, Emergency Room of the
Future 2008, http://www.hsi.gatech.edu/erfuture/
[2] Bernal, M., Do, E.Y-L. Variation from Repetition, in
Proc. eCAADe (2007), 791-798
[3] Chen, J., DAM: Digital Animation Museum, M. Arch
thesis, University of Washington, Seattle, 2002
[9] Hoberman Associates, Transformable Design,
Adaptive Fritting, Harvard Graduate School of Design,
http://hoberman.com/portfolio/gsd.php?projectname=
Adaptive%20Fritting
[10] Kahn, N, Portfolio, http://nedkahn.com/wind.html
[11] Kay, A. The Best Way to Predict the Future is to
Invent It, Stanford Engineering, 1, 1 (1989), 1-6.
[12] Le Corbusier (1923) Towards a New Architecture
(original title: Vers une architecture) Eng. Trans. 1927
[13] Negroponte, N. Soft Architecture Machines, MIT
Press (1976).
[14] Shelton, E, Adaptable Urban Plaza Seating, Digital
Design Studio Spring 2000, University of Washington
[15] Sivcevic, E. Trans-Dorm: transformable space,
http://wiki.cc.gatech.edu/designcomp/index.php/Happy
_Healthy_Home Happy Healthy Home 2009, Ga Tech
[16] Weller, M. P., Espresso Blocks: Self-configuring
Building Blocks, M. Arch thesis, U Washington, 2003
[17] Weller, M.P., Do, E.Y-L. Architectural Robotics: A
New Paradigm for the Built Environment, in EuropIA
11: 11th International Conference on Design Sciences
and Technology, (2007), 353-362