forms (hence affordances). Moving forward, I plan to investigate whether responsive architecture can serve more practical ends, such as whether it can be used to design a safer, more efficient traffic system for pedestrians and cyclists in dense urban centers.

AUGMENTED ARCHITECTURE

Augmented architecture does not involve actual technical interventions to architecture itself; rather, the label represents a class of technologies that employ augmented reality to “filter” users’ perceptions of the surrounding built environment, producing equivalent experiences of digitized architectural space (Figure 5). Since the effects are illusory (produced by personal electronic devices), the environment can be radically transformed in ways free from real-world constraints, including the laws of physics.

HCI has long been supportive of augmented reality research, and a wealth of relevant work in this area has been carried out within the community. One of my own projects, ClayVision (Figure

6), is a good example. Whereas conventional vision-based augmented reality systems—due to technical limitations—were restricted to overlaying virtual graphics on top of real-world scenery, ClayVision demonstrates how, by using advanced computer vision/image processing techniques, we can treat the entire built environment as a collection of malleable 3D models. Users of the system can grow, transform, and remove buildings with ease; for example, when looking for restaurants, the heights of all buildings in sight may be adjusted to reflect Yelp ratings.

Our experience of space is a holistic one involving multiple sensory channels, and thus augmented architecture preferably should cater to a wide range of modalities, not just vision. Several of my projects were initiated to address this concern. Weightless Wall (Figure 7) uses aural augmented reality to produce sound-blocking walls that can be erected anywhere in a room (which is proposed as a key component of a future, hyper-flexible office environment), and Gilded Gait (Figure 8) uses haptic augmented reality to mechanically alter sensations of ground texture (potential uses include navigation and outdoor gaming).

A

Figure 3. MIMMI, an interactive installation built in Minneapolis. The piece acts as a large-scale ambient display that lets people be aware of the collective mood of their fellow citizens.

Collaboration with Bradley Cantrell, Jack Cochran, Carl Koepcke, Peter Mabardi, Artem Melikyan, Allen Sayegh, and Ziyi Zhang (see http://minneapolis.org/mimmi/ for more details).

Figure 4. Whirlstools, a kinetic furniture system that fosters communication in public spaces. Seat angles of vacant stools are dynamically adjusted to steer people into sitting face-to-face with one another. Collaboration with Jean You.

shape/color transformation

Figure 2. Responsive architecture. In this relatively small-scale example, the responsive wall’s color changes to green and apertures appear on its surface, allowing passersby to see through to the other side.

HMDs, Headsets, Projectors, etc.

The Actual Scenery The Perceived Scenery

Figure 5. Augmented architecture. Augmented reality technology is used to filter the user’s perception of space, offering the experience of a “digitized” architectural environment.