Diagram of a conversation – Lucas Reames
What if you could control a building with your mind? What if the buildings around you knew you were there? Not only that you were there, but what could be possible if buildings new the community of people that are present? In 2007, I presented a paper at the Shifting Positions: Bodies in Space Conference titled “Ambient Agents: Space, Architecture and The Self.” In this paper I think of a building to be very similar to how the physiology of the mind and body work, a series of mechanical, physical and biochemical reactions to an assumed set of circumstances. Buildings operate like this to some level already as a thermostat can control the airflow and temperature of a room. My interest though is how a more advanced version of assumed circumstances and reactions in a building can fundamentally change the space from both design and performance aspects by investigating “cognitive extensions of the mind in both physical and virtual spaces of a building” (Ambient Agents). There are two critical points that support this proposition. I used the following passage of the paper to describe how creating a building that acts as an appendage of the human body can create an very intimate relationship between a person and their environment:
“First, we must make a distinction between the mind and the body. The mind makes decisions and processes information. The body acts as an agent of the mind and executes the mind’s desires. Motor skills are then operated by commands sent through neural networks. We control our bodies implicitly because our muscles are directly connected to our mind. Because of this implicit and intimate connection, we associate the body with the self. We consider ourselves separate from our environment because all interactions with it are explicit and indirect, usually by means of our bodies.”
The second point has to do with my fascination with Gordon Pask’s Conversation Theory. Developing a Cybernetics System reinforces and develops the intimate relationship between a person and their environment. Breaking the mold of unidirectional communication of users opens a world of design and building performance opportunities.
