RESEARCH ARTICLE

Designing for change: The poetic potential of responsive architecture

  • Mark Meagher
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  • University of Sheffield School of Architecture, Arts Tower, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN, United Kingdom

Received date: 12 Oct 2014

Accepted date: 13 Mar 2015

Published date: 20 Jul 2015

Copyright

2014 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

The integration of responsive components in architecture offers the potential to enhance the experience of the building by giving expression to fleeting, changeable aspects of the environment. Responsive buildings enable a physical response to changes in the environment through specific building elements; in rare cases these responsive elements become an integral and poetic element of a culturally significant work of architecture. In this paper I examine two types of responsiveness, one which concerns the changing environment and another the activities and needs of the building's inhabitants. I look at two examples of buildings that illustrate a potential poetic role for architectural components responding to these two types of change, and propose that architects will need to acquire experience with designing for specific rates, scales and types of change before responsive elements will more frequently appear as a poetic and integral part of the building.

Cite this article

Mark Meagher . Designing for change: The poetic potential of responsive architecture[J]. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2015 , 4(2) : 159 -165 . DOI: 10.1016/j.foar.2015.03.002

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