Responsive architecture came to the fore in the late 1960s and early to mid 1970Ős when shortfalls within modern buildings led architects to question the design methodologies that were used within the profession. It was within this context that architects attempted to forge more appropriate forms of architecture and new, user-centred, design methodologies.

Though the development of responsive architecture was first driven by shortfalls within practice, its successes were informed by three forward-thinking ideas. These were: 1) that architects design systems, not just buildings, 2) that feedback could be used as an architectural form generator, and 3) that the profession of architecture must respond to the changes that surrounded its practice.

Supported by relatively recent developments within the fields of Cybernetics and General System Theory, architects were encouraged to think of buildings as dynamic user systems or feedback systems rather than as static objects. This shift enabled architects to rethink the existing modern ideals of form and function within the terms of behaviour and fitness for purpose. By employing feedback as a new type of form generator, architects began to conceptualize a new architecture that could tie user needs, wants, and actions directly to architectural form. The realization that the profession of architecture had undergone serious quantitative change added further weight to this shift. Working from observations about the way architects designed, Yona Friedman proposed the model of participatory architecture. He introduced the model in the belief that modern architects faced many new types of design problems that were caused by increasing client numbers as well as a significant increase in the degree of impact that single design decisions had. From here it was a relatively short step for people such as Nicholas Negroponte to recognize that the profession of architecture needed to change and that the systems and cybernetic approach to design offered a tangible model upon which such change could be based.

As someone interested in designing responsive buildings, I would like to frame this discussion differently to support a more detailed understanding of the systems that are required to actually construct a responsive architecture. Even though the participatory and feedback models of architecture are conceptually very similar one must understand that, at the technological level, both models are actually fundamentally different. They are different because the model of feedback supports arguments of automation while the participatory model proposed by Friedman supports arguments for direct manipulation. Though both models are very useful this paper supports a third model that unites each interaction methodology within a single, hybridized, model.

Hybridized models of control are not without their own precedents. Hybridized control techniques are often used within the field of robotics to produce intelligent machines. These types of models support the use of higher-level reasoning and lower-level responsive processes, often scaffolding each together to produce flexible and robust control systems. Though commonly used in robotics the hybridized model also provides us with insight into the development of new human-computer interaction methodologies that unite direct manipulation and automation within a single interactive process. This paper explores the relationship between direct manipulation and automated interaction methodologies. It discusses how each methodology may be woven together to produce useful hybridized control mechanisms for responsive buildings.