At its most trivial, the columns can be preprogrammed to deploy themselves in prescribed configurations. This can be effective for re-proportioning a large space into smaller spaces or reorganizing the circulation of people through it. A more complex program ties the columns to real time sensing such that they can respond to inhabitants’ perturbations in space. The columns, working from a simple set of rules, respond to data coming from a carbon dioxide (CO2) sensor. In a reasonably enclosed environment CO2 values can radically change with the inclusion of people. The columns are programmed to come down when CO2 levels are going up resulting in people dispersing into smaller groups. If the CO2 levels are going down the columns respond by going up, effectively inviting people into the space. If however the CO2 value stays static the columns cycle through a random set of configurations until the CO2 either goes up or down. If a particular configuration causes a change in CO2, either going or coming down, that is put into the system’s memory and reused the next time a static situation is encountered. If, however, the next time a round the stored configuration does not yield the necessary result then it is lowered in rank and purged if on subsequent uses it does not perform. In this way the columns, over time, learn about their space based on their own actions within it. This creates a teleonomic environment, one that acts on particular goals but has no determinate goal to which it is ultimately driven.
By blending different hardness’s together into more complex composites, the rubber’s elasticity could be better calibrated for particular performance while also increasing variety in the overall structure. The columns’ movements are controlled by networked motors. These can be steered by preprogrammed scenarios or through real time sensor based responses. Depending on the size of the column array and its formation the system is able to create subtle to stark variations of spaces that fulfill architect Cedric Price’s dictum “never look empty, never feel full”.
open columns exhibition <-VIDEO
