the project brief:
"anything said is said by an observer. In his discourse the observer speaks to another observer, who could be himself: whatever applies to the one applies to the other as well. The observer is a human being, that is, a living system, and whatever applies to the living system applies to him." -Maturana and Varela
"...the building envelope inhabits a boundary condition that is often ambiguous... the complex layering of building materials that compose the interface of the surface address and modulates their own specific micro environmental conditions. These environmental (technical) elements have their own variable scale that are both molecular (capillary action) as well as human.
"As a dynamic system, the building envelop mitigates a variety of environmental and energetic systems. These systems may include, temperature differentials, light and solar energy, wind pressure, humidity and water infiltration and even the sonic conditions between these environments. Each of these conditions has the potential to develop into interplay between a sensing condition (both electronically and passively) as well as an opportunity for actuation. ... These conditions of environmental interplay are also polyscalar and polytemporal. ... The opportunity to develop and interactive script based on a temporal complexity resides in the relationship that is immediately available within a typical environmental interplay of a building membrane.
1. the device must sense immaterial phenomenon. In this sense, anything that is exposed to, surrounds or effects the environment of a building. This would include: sound, vibration, pressure, hydrology, humidity, light, heat, electromagnetic energy, radio waves etc. Any immaterial phenomenon that is affected or modulated by a building condition.
2. the device must translate this immaterial condition into a sensible analogue. ie. a phenomenological condition that reveals to the senses and makes apparent this immaterial condition. Hence in its action and monitoring of something that is invisible, it must make it tangible. Tangible to the point where its behaviors, its sensibilities can be tracked through time and space.
In interactive systems, we refer to this as mapping; where phenomenon that are unperceivable can be transformed into the perceivable by the calibration and the manipulation of the phenomenon; some strategies include, material translation, scaling (both in time and space) and even amplification.
"Our problem is the living organization and therefore our interest will not be in properties of components, but in the process and relations between processes realized through components." - Maturana and Varela
