In the next few years, emerging practices in interactive architecture are set to transform the built environment. 'Smart' design was once regarded as the preserve of museum exhibits or Jumbotrom advertising screens, but 'multi-mediated' interactive design has started entering into every domain of public and private life as a spatial medium, interactive architecture is revolutionising and reinventing our work, leisure and domestic spaces.
Fast-changing social contexts are dominated by the blurring of boundaries between work and play, information retrieval and use. Pliable and responsive digital environments raise the haptic and intuitive threshold of public and private space by harnessing physical and mental responses. Will interactive architecture embrace a wider scope of functions and experiences - from sensing mechanisms, to the info-lounge, to the ambient home environment and the holistic hospital - through customisable design possibilities?
Essays and interviews by international commentators Lucy Bullivant, guest editor of the issue, Ole Bouman, Antonino Saggio, Stefano Mirti and Walter Aprile and Mike Weinstock on the cultural issues raised by the emergence of interactive architecture will be complemented with features on acclaimed practitioners Christian Moller, Tobi Schneidler, Ron Arad and Jason Bruges. Benchmark interactive projects in this issue evolving new models of interdisciplinary teamwork include The Media House, led by Metapolis, IaaC and the MIT Media Lab and projects conceived at the Interactive Institute, Ivrea, Italy. New work is also featured by KDa/Toshio Iwai; realities: united, Usman Haque, Adam Somlai-Fischer, Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen, Lars Spuybroek and the Institute of Neuro-Informatics, ETH, Zurich, Kitchen Rogers Design; IDEO, and Tom Barker, b consultants/SmartSlab.
