Interactive Architecture – Chair

Zane Murray and I finished up our prototype for our interactive architecture collaboration, and we’re happy with the steps we’ve made toward our vision.

After our initial prototype, I thought more about what we wanted the interaction to be, and so we decided to use sensors as a way to interface with the piece. The presence of a simple hand gesture directs each side of the device. Here is a short video demonstration:

We envision environments that are not made up of static objects, but fluid and dynamic systems that respond to simple gestures, taking various desired forms. In addition to floors, woven materials made of flexible metal and reusable/recycled components could be embedded with intelligent technology within walls, ceilings, and other surrounding spaces that provide a full feedback loop of true interaction.

The programming for this project was done with two Ardweeny chips running an Arduino program that I wrote making use of the Servo library (see comments for code). These chips were placed on to two separate pc boards attached to 10 full-rotation servo motors as well as 2 sensors (Ultrasonic Range Finder – Maxbotix LV-EZ1) and 10 reed switches. The reed switches were placed at the end of each row and magnets were used to consistently calibrate the location of the wheeled carts guiding the nitinol.