This thesis aims to explore the relationships between a responsive system and its inhabitants.  Using wood for its embedded responsive potential and combining that with active-bending structural logic, a system will be designed that is able to respond and adapt to changing conditions, and to engage in active conversations and mutual exchanges with its occupants.  The system will have the following characteristics:

• The system will be composed of sensitive aggregates that exist in a constant state of precariousness, lending an almost “lively” nature to subtle movements.

• This system will create a tactile, immersive environment in which localized changes effect the system’s homeostatic performance.

• This complex weaving of delicate aggregates will be a distributed system that can facilitate the circulation and gathering of people, an environment that is responsive to forces acting within and around it, but also eliciting response from its inhabitants.

The characteristics will be explored through extensive model making and material experimentation.  These experiments will then be used to inform digital simulations and these simulations will be used to inform the aggregation of structures and explore material capabilities.  Wood is being chosen for several reasons: It is a fibrous material that inherently holds tensile performance, it has the embedded ability to react to humidity, it holds a rich variety of tactile characteristics, it is a sustainable building material, and it has a strong olfactory presence.

Architecture is not simply a static object, but a system that embodies internal and external energies and mediates these energies with their environment.  These energies include, but are not limited to: wind, heat, humidity, light, circulation, densities of inhabitants etc.  The architectural theorist, Ed van Hinte stated, “Architects should see themselves as programmers of a process of spatial change…thus our principal task is creating a field of change and modification that would generate possibilities instead of fixed conditions”.   If we view ourselves as programmers of a system that is constantly changing, and view each component inside and outside of a space as an energy force; we can begin to construct systems that holistically engage with all of these energies simultaneously. We can view each element of a space as having a dynamic function and not as an individual piece.

Recent developments of “smart” materials offers an opportunity to design material behaviors as opposed to choosing materials based on their static properties.  These smart materials behave in response to the active energy fields existing within and around the “systems” we program.  However, the introduction of these smart materials calls for careful consideration of all of the building elements we use.  These materials exist in a variable environment and therefore we should explore the embodied potential each of these materials has to respond to its environment if we are to design with material behaviors in mind.  This idea of performative materials change our notion of materials as a static element to one in which the material acts as a mediator.  This allows us to view the interface between materials, people, and their environment all as actors within a system.