2020/09/03
Published by Springer Singapore
Designing an Architectural Robot: An Actuated Active Transforming Structure Using Face Detection
Co-author:
Yujie Wang, Shang Liu
Although the advances of autonomous control in robotics broke new ground in the realization of architecture, they have hardly been integrated with architectural design intention. Very few examples of architecture-specific robot exist. This results from multiple realistic factors including the scalability and cost. However, the fundamental incentive lies in the stereotypical design ideology that fails to develop new spatial agendas to stimulate the integration. This paper presents a design workflow that revolves around designing an architectural robot. An operational full-scale architectural robot of an actuated active transforming structure was prototyped and tested to demonstrate the workflow. The design is based on a prototyping model with pneumatic actuation system and sensing using computer vision. The structure interacts with human by detecting face features and actively transforming its gesture to prevent human from approaching. The communication is based on a simulation-model-free host program that constantly reads sensor feedbacks and sends actuation values.
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2017/10/13
Published by 2017 Palimpsest
Yale Graduate School of Art and Science
Neat Imperfection
PAMLIMPSEST VII - RISK
Yale Graduate Literary & Arts Magzine, Fall 2017
“Neat Imperfection” shows a series of details in two parts: an interactive architectural installation and its corresponding non-standard circuit station. The term ‘imperfection’ refers to bugs and failures in the code, tangling tubes and wires in the circuits, unorganized power adapters and strips behind the station. These ‘imperfections’ are in stark contrast to the expectation of a delicately-designed, ‘neat’ circuit as shown in the schematic diagram. Instead of being hidden or covered, the imperfections are highlighted. The photos kill the romantic image of technology smoothly integrated into a design. Emphasizing the frictions in the integration, this documentation aims to demonstrate a design methodology based on digital prototyping and computation. Digitization will not make architecture become a phantom; rather it will adapt to alternative forms and will bring new emergent principles of authorship into the. Trying to be safe on the path forward is too dangerous; we must take risks.
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2017/04/19
Published by Room One Thousand
UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design
⌘-C, ⌘-V
ROOMONETHOUSAND Issue 5
Co-author:
Lixing Ivy feng
Copy-paste, as the most widely used computer command, establishes a unique human-data interaction, unimaginable in a pre-digital era. It is an instant reproduction that takes no time. Rather, it is a timeless reproduction. From a mediahistorical perspective, it is similar to the shift from orality to literacy in which writing as a technology greatly changed the world (Ong, 2013). As such, it is crucial to consider copy-paste as a metaphor originating in digital technology, which is now infiltrating all aspects of material culture and dramatically impacting the design world.
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