The greatest challenge of all is not scientifi c (creating increasingly mature mathematical models), nor technological (creating the physical and elec-tronic systems to enable levels of interactivity and sensibility in building and settings). And neither is it even functional. No the true challenge is, as always, of an aesthetic nature.67
As wryly noted by Antonino Sagio in a discussion of interactive architecture, the aesthetic challenge of imbuing technology and functional logic with poetry ultimately distinguishes competent buildings from inspirational architecture. The particular chal-lenge addressed here, is that kinetics requires the consideration of (to use WIlliam Zuk’s phrase) ‘a sense of motion, itself’. To advance beyond obvious compositional approaches (such as the proliferation of wave forms), some basic research needs to be undertaken. This includes an understanding of the variables that determine kinetics, iterative design studies to explore the possible range of kinetic forms, and a shared set of terms to enable considered critique. The aim of this book is to provide this basic framework. As a fi rst step towards this goal, this chapter has scanned contemporary practice and discourse and examined the wider historical context.
What has been revealed? Contemporary designers tend not to engage in discourse on aesthetics when discussing projects, and this is the case for most working with kinetic facades. The review of practice and discourse was undertaken to examine precedent for an articulated design theory, or refl ection on practice by designers in terms of kinetic composition. Some useful information has been uncovered, in par-ticular, research on control systems for kinetics in architecture provides precedent for some of the variables that determine kinetics. There is, however, minimal discussion that engages with the aspiration of this book. There is little evidence of designers stepping back from their design prototypes, and considering the possible range of compositional approaches afforded by kinetics. Why is this so? Environmentally responsive building facades have been possible for many years, such as Buckminster Fuller’s automated sunscreens for the US pavilion at Expo ’67, or Jean Nouvel’s Institut du Monde Arabe.68 Considering these two high-profi le examples, it would seem they were ahead of their time, with the available technology proving to be inadequate. They are singular moments in architectural history, which have become
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as well known for the technical problems as for the innovative compositional poten-tial they signaled.
The contemporary emphasis within architectural design on environmental performance has led to a renewal of interest in the capacity for facades to be kineti-cally responsive. A range of environmental sunscreens have been constructed, and new systems are continually being developed. At present the kinetics is basic, but there is no doubt that the current trajectory of research into responsive building facades will continue, with the result that more sophisticated technical solutions will be available. Within these environmental systems there is a growing recognition that the aesthetics of the technology needs to be considered, alongside the technical performance. The drivers are twofold: fi rst, there is a formal agenda to express the technology architecturally; second, the feedback from occupants has been nega-tive towards unconsidered kinetics, variously described as distracting or disturbing.
The technology is constantly improving, with more robust mechanics and refi ned controls to coordinate the kinetics of individual components. This provides an oppor-tunity for designers to integrate kinetics in a manner that enhances performance, user experience and provides new avenues for the architectural expression of technology.
The potential for kinetic environmental control systems is one clear area of activity, but, understandably, composition is not at the forefront of this research.
The gap in design knowledge is more immediately apparent outside environmental control, where designers are contemplating the use of kinetic relief as an engag-ing, interactive form of cladding. There are commercial systems on the market, informed by the high profi le of dECOi’s Aegis Hyposurface. The overview of activity also revealed alternative technology, which explores kinetic membranes and other approaches to producing animated relief. That research is being driven by an interest in the recasting of architectural surface as a zone of interactivity, with the potential to engage users with public artworks or to embed socio-cultural information. At present, the focus is on the technical and functional aspects of the kinetic systems, but implicit in the discourse is an interest in composition.
Within the contemporary mainstream, an alternative approach to the articulation of static facades has been developing for some time. The Function of Ornament articulates a revived interest in urban facades beyond the legacy of func-tional expressionism and post-modern composition:
Architecture needs new mechanisms that allow it to become connected to culture. It achieves this by continually capturing the forces that shape society as material to work with. Architecture’s materiality is therefore a composite one, made up of visible as well as invisible forces. Progress in architecture occurs through new concepts by which it becomes connected with this material, and it manifests itself in new aesthetic compositions and affects.69
From this position on architecture’s materiality, kinetics provides new opportuni-ties, a sophisticated approach to the incorporation of kinetics, be they driven by
environmental or socio-cultural agendas. The use of the term ‘composition’ is problematic for some designers, who still appear to be reacting to the excess of post-modernist formalism. Take, for example, the Aegis, where the declared inter-est in kinetics is an aspiration for an indeterminate zone of interaction, in avoidance of ‘composition’. But as the designers reveal, the control systems that process the interactions provide a ‘qualitative fi ltering’, a facility to infl ect outcomes, from which the designers conceived ‘alphabets of patterning’.70 Is this not just a higher level of composition, where the activity is directed towards manipulating the variables from which form will evolve? To be fair, the declared target of dECOi was Gombrich’s The Sense of Order, which argues for representative certitude in art. The fi ltering and control for the Aegis, by contrast, aspired to shape a precise order of indeterminacy – to suspend the composition in an undulating zone of mutable surface where text, image and sampling of local interaction momentary coalesce as fl eeting pattern on pattern. Unfortunately, as the Aegis appears to have been mothballed, it is not pos-sible to gauge how far their qualitative fi ltering progressed. The photographs and stills reveal a predilection for waves and eddies of various confi gurations, which resonates with many of the other examples examined. For the purposes of this study, the aspiration is that a morphology of kinetic pattern will enable such precise control over levels of indeterminacy, or if it is the design intent, the converse – a predictably ordered composition. That is, kinetic composition as used here, consid-ers design as a continuum between explicit predetermined form and degrees of indeterminacy – reactive, responsive and refl exive.
Beyond contemporary activity, the historical widening of the scan through kinetics revealed overviews of technology and a philosophical perspective. In terms of the former, Zuk and Clarke provide a taxonomy of machine controls, culminating in a heuristic system linked to a cybernetic device. How might this taxonomy be uti-lized in relation to a morphology of kinetic pattern? A framework for considering the design variables that infl uence kinetic pattern, if developed from these precedents, would emphasize composition as a direct outcome of technology. The classifi cations may allow a greater understanding of technical approaches, but as presented, there is no connection made with the kinetic composition that results. The emphasis on technology as the primary factor in determining kinetic pattern does not address the wider context, evidenced by contemporary examples – in particular those systems that are not directly related to an environmental agenda, such as the range of projects that explore kinetic relief.
In contrast to Zuk and Clarke, the discussion of contemporary Dutch architecture by Jormakka considers kinetics primarily in relation to theory. Of some potential relevance is his discussion of the philosophical legacy of Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze. Two concepts – diagram and duration – appear to be used pro-ductively by some of the architects cited in his discussion. The use of the ‘diagram’
as a creative representational device could potentially be useful for kinetic facades.
Rather than using new technology to repeat existing conventions, kinetic composi-tion conceived through diagrammatic relacomposi-tionships may be a tactic to avoid what Jormakka describes as the problem of ‘topological fi xation’.71 What diagrams might enable an open approach to composition, in avoidance of kinetics being merely an
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outcome of the enabling technology? The intuition here is that the answers to this question reside in an articulation of the full range of variables that determine kinetics.
Diagram as used by Jormakka, can be seen to equate to the focus on morphology that underpins this research. As will be evident in Part 2, a diagrammatic or mor-phological approach enables a systematic exploration of the compositional potential of kinetic facades.
The second concept introduced by Jormakka is Bergsonian duration.
A recent discussion of Cedric Price’s Fun Palace (an often-quoted precedent for interactive architecture) provides an introduction to this concept in an architectural context. Mathews draws a comparison between Bergson’s conception of matter as
‘time and duration, continuous fl ux and infi nite succession without distinct states’, and Price’s conception of architecture: ‘events rather than of object, events not as static snapshots but as a continuous evolution of phenomena unfolding in time’.72
Kinetic facades provide a similar context in which ‘phenomena’ unfold in time. Can Bergson’s concept of duration be useful in theorizing an approach to kinetic facade composition? Duration has been developed by Gilles Deleuze, through his highlighting of the distinction between continuous and qualitative multiplicity.
It would be a serious mistake to think that duration was simply the indivis-ible, although for convenience, Bergson often expresses himself in this way. In reality, duration divides up and does so constantly: That is why it is a multiplicity. But it does not divide up without changes in kind, it changes in kind in the process of dividing up.73
The distinction is between two forms of duration: continuous multiplicity is a
‘quantitative differentiation, of difference in degree’; while a second form involves
‘qualitative discrimination, or of difference in kind’.74 The concept of qualitative and continuous multiplicity, provides one approach to conceiving a morphology of kinetic form. A facade which operates as a continuous multiplicity would be capable of potentially infi nite variation, but this would be ‘already visible in the image of the object’.75 Consider one of Ned Kahn’s surfaces, rippling under the infl uence of wind.
While there are infi nite combinations of wind eddies, once a number are compre-hended, then all possibilities are ‘already visible’. The surveyor may continue to observe infi nite variation by degree and, while the register of subtle variations may be engaging, once the initial discovery has passed, this is a relatively neutral state.
There is no qualitative change – the variations, while infi nite, do not achieve any state change and hence do not heighten perceptual awareness. In contrast, a kinetic facade which operates as a qualitative multiplicity would, within the Bergsonian framework, undergo changes in kind as well as in degree. Returning to the example of Kahn’s wind veil, what would constitute a change in kind? For example, would differential resistance to rotation suffi ce? Consider if the small discs that make up the surface were ferrous, rather than aluminum. An electromagnetic fi eld control-ling the facade could enable a dampening of the wind patterns. If the control was in turn linked to another non-linear data source, an unpredictable mix of wind force and dampening effect would result. Potentially, there would be the capacity for two
types of pattern formation, and permutations between states. That is, the capacity for difference in degree and kind. The concept of duration articulates that, as phe-nomena unfold in time, there is the capacity for changes in degree, that in turn trigger changes in kind. This may provide a useful insight for understanding the infl uence of design variables on kinetic pattern, and conceiving a robust morphology that can cope with the potentially infi nite variation possible.
The context for understanding the potential of kinetics has a wider background than that being considered by many designers. Contemporary activity is evidence of a growing fi eld of design, but one that still requires some fundamental work to be undertaken. Designers are focusing on technical implementation, and are producing innovative and inspirational prototypes to meet the requirements for robust, environmentally effi cient systems. The ideas being explored here are no less challenging – that is, the potential for a subtle aesthetics of movement.