Mark Meagher - <div>Responsive architecture, a design field that has arisen in recent decades at the intersection of architecture and computer science, invokes a material response to digital information and implies the capacity of the building to respond dynamically to changing stimuli. The question I will address in the paper is whether it is possible for the responsive components of architecture to become a poetically expressive part of the building, and if so why this result has so rarely been achieved in contemporary and recent built work. The history of attitudes to- ward obsolescence in buildings is investigated as one explanation for the rarity of examples like the one considered here that successfully overcomes the rapid obsolescence of responsive components and makes these elements an integral part of the work of architecture. In conclusion I identify strategies for the design of responsive components as poetically expressive elements of architecture.</div><div><br></div><div>Keywords: Responsive architecture; obsolescence; High Tech architecture; Archigram</div>
Responsive Architecture and the Problem of Obsolescence
Type
journal article
Year
2014
Responsive architecture, a design field that has arisen in recent decades at the intersection of architecture and computer science, invokes a material response to digital information and implies the capacity of the building to respond dynamically to changing stimuli. The question I will address in the paper is whether it is possible for the responsive components of architecture to become a poetically expressive part of the building, and if so why this result has so rarely been achieved in contemporary and recent built work. The history of attitudes to- ward obsolescence in buildings is investigated as one explanation for the rarity of examples like the one considered here that successfully overcomes the rapid obsolescence of responsive components and makes these elements an integral part of the work of architecture. In conclusion I identify strategies for the design of responsive components as poetically expressive elements of architecture.

Keywords: Responsive architecture; obsolescence; High Tech architecture; Archigram
Citation
Meagher, Mark. "Responsive Architecture and the Problem of Obsolescence." Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, vol. 8, issue 3 (2014): 95-104.
Parent Publications
Authorities
Copyright
Mark Meagher, licensed under CC-BY-ND-NC
Language
English