When I first came to Chicago, I was overwhelmed by the breadth of its streets and the ways in which they exposed me to the sky, the sun, and the water. I was overrun with questions and constantly reminded about the role that this city played in developing many of the modern building techniques that were first used within skyscrapers - these thoughts informed the architecture of my mind.

My arrival here caused me to busily think about how one building, built strongly enough to stand against the wind, might affect its neighbour. How this building might cause its neighbour excessive loads by reflecting wind unexpectedly onto it, or how it might shelter its neighbour from the wind. And from this point on, I wondered if there wasn't a better way of making buildings so that they could both respond to unexpected conditions and recognize that a response to them may cause their neighbour some discomfort. I wondered if there would ever be an architecture that recognized this potential - an architecture that would produce buildings to intelligently respond to these situations and turn our cities into places filled by buildings that cooperatively blow and sway in the wind like a field of tall grass, distributing loads strategically across whole regions, rather than just individual areas, of a city.

I then began to wonder how these architectures could be built in social and cultural settings, about the type of program that would be necessary, the location where a series of these buildings would be built, and finally how also they would be built to respond to this city and the architecture that it inspires within my mind.

This project aims to make responsive technologies apparent within architecture by using them to purposefully shape the form of a building 'an experimental performance space' that is actively responsive to both you and me. The project is inspired by a desire to make spaces that improve the quality of peoples lives and that provide them with a place in which they can creatively interact with the environment in unforeseen and unexpected ways. It is a project that lets a dancer dance with a building, and that same building to then begin building dance with that dancer.

Few people envisaged that the production and use of materials such as cast iron and steel would have such a dramatic impact upon the shape of their world. But those people developed the products that, step by step, crept into the fabric of built environments around the globe, changing the social and economic structures of our communities, towns, and cities. With these changes in hand it became obvious that the concept of how urban spaces should perform and look needed to be reconsidered and plans for cities such as Paris, Washington and Berlin, were proposed. It was within this climate of progress and industrial change that the plan of Chicago was born.

Cities are massive investments. They are the largest creations made by people and they reflect both our historical as well as contemporary values. They are composed upon landscapes of functioning urban spaces, parks, transport arteries, natural reserves, and buildings. Historically many of these spaces were filled with industrial technologies that were connected to the fabric of cities at very large scales, leaving little space for a human scale or aesthetic to prevail. Smaller, more powerful, and more highly integrated ubiquitous technologies today enable us to distribute equally powerful systems more uniformly, less noticeably, and at the scale of a single individual. Today we are at a point in history where these much smaller, cheaper, more powerful technologies are ready to be incorporated into our buildings in ways that have never before been possible.

So what impact will these technologies have upon architecture? Of course, sensor/computer/actuator technologies have been common within our buildings for several decades, two very common examples of which are the elevator and the thermostat. Since the early 1980's, structural engineers have used responsive technologies to absorb loads within the largest of our buildings - skyscrapers. Engineers use these technologies to reduce the shear loads of wind as well as the loads that earthquakes impose upon buildings, often redistributing the forces or counteracting them by causing buildings to vibrate at frequencies that cancel out an undesired load in a dynamic way. The discipline of architecture has accepted the inclusion of these technologies because the services that they offer help extend existing visions of what architecture is. Thus, buildings become taller by cleverly responding to wind loads and actively adjusting the structure to absorb new loads, but the architectural aesthetic has remained surprisingly constant.

Located at the heart of Burnham's plan of Chicago, a plan inspired by technological innovation and the advancement of a social built environment, this project is informed by the understanding that, the previous urban revolution caused by the introduction of technological systems will no longer be limited (en-mass) to urban forms. Technological innovation has moved from the urban scale, down, to affect buildings at the scale of a single individual. The revolution is made possible through technological progression, through a trend towards smaller and smaller, powerful technologies, and through their increasing adoption within social, cultural and artistic realms.

This project was conceived as a forum for the development of a new type of architecture 'responsive architecture' that would meet the needs of an experimental performance space located at the unrealized civic center of Burnham's plan for Chicago.

Within this project sensor/computer/actuator technologies are used to produce a series of intelligent building envelopes, that seek fresh relationships between 'building' and 'user'. These responsive buildings would be covered by skins that have the ability to alter their shape as the social and environmental conditions of the spaces within and around each building change. New, more personal relationships with space will inspire fresh interpretations of architecture.

Finally relationships that emerge from the juxtaposition of experimental performance and responsive architecture could lead architects to new sets of ideas that uncover new possibilities within architecture as well as provide performance artists with spontaneous, unanticipated, and serendipitous moments that further artistic expression.

All panels were produced by digital processes. The red panels are conceptual drawings that represent the spontaneous overlaying of new responsive behaviors onto performance spaces. Each red panel was made by scanning handwork (drawn on top of printed computer renderings) into the computer and then reprinting the mixed work with a faulty printer to produce documents that are non-repetitive, serendipitous, experimental, and original renderings. The three black prints contain images representing the operation of the building, its components and the relation of each skin to the civic axis of Burnham's plan, while the remaining panels explain my understanding of how the project relates to its existing site and Burnham's original vision of Chicago.

The performance spaces proposed within this project, have been positioned to align themselves with the existing urban vista and former civic axis of Burnham's plan as it stretches from Congress, to the podium of Buckingham Fountain and then over a broad, ceremonial staircase, to an incomplete Chicago Harbor and breakwater. Several documents within Burnham's plan suggest the existence of a civic monument (or marker) located on the lake at the center of Chicago Harbor. It is the belief of the designer that the mass of an unrealized civic monument was used by Burnham to complete the city's civic axis and thus also provide a focus for people as they approach the lake. Frais completes the plan and fulfills the site.

For further information about the systems that are being used within this project and its related research please refer to the following peer reviewed papers. For information on control systems, responses and how they relate to a functional architecture see: "Building Upon Negroponte: A Hybridized Model Of Control Suitable For Responsive Architecture" Published in the proceedings of the 21st International eCAADe Conference, September 17-20, Graz Austria 2003. pp. 407-414
http://www.ofram.com/negroponte/sterkECAADE_03.pdf

For information on some of the newer structural systems that I am designing for use within responsive building envelopes see: "Using Actuated Tensegrity Structures To Produce A Responsive Architecture" To be presented at the forthcoming International ACADIA conference, Ball State University, October 23-26 2003, USA.
http://www.ofram.com/tensegrity/sterkACADIA_03.pdf

Or for a more theoretical overview of the relationship between cybernetic media and architectural form see: "The Synthetic Dialect And Cybernetic Architectural Form" Published in the proceedings of the Emerging Technologies And Design Conference (ACSA International Technology Conference), MIT, July 4-7, 2000. pp.117-122
http://www.ofram.com/synthetic/sterkACSA_00.pdf