Architec Tradure

Author: Julie Knight

  • 20JanThe Breathing Wall

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    The Breathing Wall is a Kinetic Installation that shows a wall reacting to the public space. Made out of architectural objects that work independently or dependently of one another, it deploys and retracts soft fabric

    This picture shows the mechanics and electronics of our Breathing Wall piece.

    On this picture I create shadows on the light sensors to have the Breathing Wall react to my presence.

    During our conceptual phase, we thought of an assembly of cloth cubes that would form partial transparency. When densely packed, they form a privacy cloud or mist enclosure. When they retract they close the view they were enhancing. The idea is to use these kind of elements to define more diffuse borders in architecture. Soft edges resembling the spatial limits one finds in nature and in the landscape.

    Our concept


    Inspiring research

    We would like to think of it on a scale of a huge wall, where the experience an outsider has of the activities going on inside is shifting constantly by the affordances of the changing architectural surface.

    Process of implementation
    First round



    Second round


    I have created this kinetic piece with Ana Aleman. It is our final assignment for the Kinetic Architecture class taught by Dr Kostas Terzidis.

    Review process summary

    For the first assignment of this class I had designed a Memento Box as an attractive passage from door to space. The door leads to your souvenirs and is always slightly opened. A bright light shines in the back of the box clarifying a few objects and pictures around it. However, whenever your hand tries to grab what captures the eye, the door closes onto your hand in front of you and all is dark again. Whenever you go away for a tiny bit, the door opens up and more lights shine into some parts of your souvenirs and you can travel though them from far away …


    Picture of the Memento Box

    For the second assignment of this class I had designed the Ambient Peacock/Chameleon explorer with Philip Vriend as a serie of mobile units connected to a headquarter that display environmental visual on each of their shell. Real time connecting to the headquarter allow the head to ask for specific data gathering and collection of the environment. This project was blogged by Pasta and Vinegar.


    Picture of the ‘air’ mobile unit

    By Cati in kinetic architecture

  • 20JanThe Breathing Wall

    If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!



    The Breathing Wall is a Kinetic Installation that shows a wall reacting to the public space. Made out of architectural objects that work independently or dependently of one another, it deploys and retracts soft fabric

    This picture shows the mechanics and electronics of our Breathing Wall piece.

    On this picture I create shadows on the light sensors to have the Breathing Wall react to my presence.

    During our conceptual phase, we thought of an assembly of cloth cubes that would form partial transparency. When densely packed, they form a privacy cloud or mist enclosure. When they retract they close the view they were enhancing. The idea is to use these kind of elements to define more diffuse borders in architecture. Soft edges resembling the spatial limits one finds in nature and in the landscape.

    Our concept



    Inspiring research

    We would like to think of it on a scale of a huge wall, where the experience an outsider has of the activities going on inside is shifting constantly by the affordances of the changing architectural surface.

    Process of implementation

    First round







    Second round





    I have created this kinetic piece with Ana Aleman. It is our final assignment for the Kinetic Architecture class taught by Dr Kostas Terzidis.

    Review process summary

    For the first assignment of this class I had designed a Memento Box as an attractive passage from door to space. The door leads to your souvenirs and is always slightly opened. A bright light shines in the back of the box clarifying a few objects and pictures around it. However, whenever your hand tries to grab what captures the eye, the door closes onto your hand in front of you and all is dark again. Whenever you go away for a tiny bit, the door opens up and more lights shine into some parts of your souvenirs and you can travel though them from far away …



    Picture of the Memento Box

    For the second assignment of this class I had designed the Ambient Peacock/Chameleon explorer with Philip Vriend as a serie of mobile units connected to a headquarter that display environmental visual on each of their shell. Real time connecting to the headquarter allow the head to ask for specific data gathering and collection of the environment. This project was blogged by Pasta and Vinegar.



    Picture of the ‘air’ mobile unit

    By Cati in kinetic architecture


  • 18JanPlayPals: Tangible Interfaces for Remote Communication and Play

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    PlayPals are a set of wireless figurines with their electronic accessories that provide children with a playful way to communicate between remote locations. PlayPals is designed for children aged 5-8 to share multimedia experiences and virtual co-presence. We learned from our pilot study that embedding digital communication into existing play pattern enhances both remote play and communication

    The project PlayPals is a team and class project for the Tangible Media class mid-term assignment at MIT Media Lab taught by Dr Hiroshi Ishii. It was presented as an extended Abstract of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘06), (Montreal, Quebec, Canada. April 22-27, 2006) by Bonanni, L., Lieberman, J., Vaucelle, C., Zuckerman, O. (alphabetical order).

    Our concept poster

    On this picture I interact with the doll, Leo being on the other end

    Our implementation poster

    By Cati in computational toy design


  • 12JanTaptap, the affectionate scarf

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    TapTap: A Haptic Wearable for Asynchronous Distributed Touch Therapy

    I continued the development on my conceptual idea touching memories and as a team we came up with a final prototype called ‘taptap’.

    TapTap is a wearable haptic system that allows nurturing human touch to be recorded, broadcast and played back for emotional therapy. Haptic input/output modules in a convenient modular scarf provide affectionate touch that can be personalized.

    Movie of Taptap


    This picture shows the second prototype that is a scarf with large pockets with a power supply. The design of the scarf is intended to make it wearable in a number of ways and allow specific TapTap actuators to be mounted wherever the wearer desires. The outside of the scarf is a public color (gray) while the inside and its intimate actuators are a warm color (pink).

    Based on haptic devices, taptap can be re-configured to record and play back the touch that is most meaningful to each user. It is made from felt in two layers: one grey one that faces the public and a pink layer that touches you and contains the haptic modules in specially designed pockets. Taptap can be worn as a regular scarf, and custom touch modules can be placed in powered pockets within to record and play back touch where and when you want it

    Taptap was blogged by Regine Debatty on we-make-money-not-art.com with a nice summary and useful references 🙂

    Taptap is a team and class project for the Tangible Media class final assignment at MIT Media Lab taught by Dr Hiroshi Ishii. I presented with Leo at CHi’06 as an extended Abstract of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘06), (Montreal, Quebec, Canada. April 22-27, 2006) by Bonanni, L., Lieberman, J., Vaucelle, C., Zuckerman, O. (alphabetical order). Download pdf.

    Taptap was part of the second Seamless fashion show, on February 1, at the Boston Museum of Science.

    On this picture, I wear a second prototype

    A few publications on Taptap and its next steps:
    . A Framework for Haptic Psycho-Therapy Published in the Proceedings of IEEE ICPS Pervasive Health Systems Workshop, Lyon, France, 2006.
    . Affective TouchCasting Published in the Proceedings of SIGGRAPH’06, Boston, USA. Abstract from publisher: ACM Press. Download pdf

  • 05DecModular electronic coolness!

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    Another really cool project from fellow MIT Media Lab friend Michael Rosenblatt. Modular electronic blocks to make things that move and sense, with various level of difficulty. I can’t wait to try the kit with my daughters 😉 Congrats to the team!!

    It is on kickstarter, but be quick, you can get the early first kit

    Here is the video

  • 26OctSuper neat robot that solves Rubik’s cubes

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  • 11OctGreat idea for Halloween!

    Spiders trapped in a maquette of a building, then retro-projected from the inside of the building. Very scary!!

    spider projection from Friedrich van Schoor on Vimeo.

  • 30SepMy new desktop 3D printer (for the fall!)

  • 30SepImpressive Lego Contraption

  • 30SepI need more music in the office!