Behaving Membranes
PFE avril 2024 Paris
Auteur(s)
Martin Genet
Enseignant(s)
Nicolas Leduc, Philippe Morel
Département
DK
Enseignement
PFE
Cycle - Année
Cycle 2 - Année 5
Résumé
In the last chapter of Soft Architecture Machines in 1975, Nicholas Negroponte postulated the distant future of architecture machines which “won’t help us design; instead, we will live in them”. Despite recent material innovations, the conception of kinetic architecture still remains deeply anchored in mostly mechanistic approaches. While those mostly rely on external engines that move rigid parts or faceted surfaces, it is meant here to use materials elastic properties as an asset rather than trying to avoid it. For Bruce Hinds (OCAD, Toronto, 2015), “we are moving away from the rigidity of architecture as structure and load bearing, to architecture as carrying and transforming information”. Considering this statement as a starting point, this research investigates the application of form-changing materials for an adaptive architecture. It aims at designing an experimental prototype whose kinetics is digitally controlled. By sensing different variables within its surrounding and its own structure, the prototype literally behaves upon environment changes and users interaction, and opens new prospects to envisage what we build as «machines for living».
Martin Genet
