Sentient Thermochromics: Attuning Reactive Architectural Materials through Biofeedback
| SoA CMU, Pittsburgh PA | 2017-19 |
| Design Research | Prototype |
This project proposes an architecture that operates like a mood ring, creating rich feedback between environment and occupant for individualized reactivity and expression. Sentient Concrete is a prototype thermochromic concrete panel, thermally actuated by embedded electromechanical systems to produce localized, dynamic responses. It serves as a testbed for exploring psychosomatic impact of architecture - where buildings respond to human mood, behavior, and emotion. While the built environment significantly affects health and well-being, architecture remains largely static, indifferent to the occupant. This project challenges the engineering paradigm of averaged thermal comfort, illustrating new scenarios of radiant heating and cooling interaction and thermal reactivity of surfaces in the built environment. Our aim is to develop embedded effects within the material systems that enable individualized thermal comfort reactivity while expressing the dynamic relationship between human perception and environmental conditions. By combining passive and active systems, we investigate how surfaces can sense biometrics and translate thermal and visual changes into emotionally resonant feedback, exploring new connections between temperature, emotion, and health.
Sentient Concrete, CAADRIA 2018
Towards Psychosomatic Architecture, Living Architecture Systems Group 2019