Full-Scale Interactive Prototyping
Experiments in Distributed Intelligence___________________________________
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Overview
Although today, we are surrounded by smart and networked architectural devices and appliances, they are not considered from and architectural point of view in terms how and when they are used and how they work together. Interactive architecture in general is built on the convergence of embedded computation (intelligence) and a physical counterpart (kinetics) that satisfies adaptation within the contextual framework of human and environmental interaction. The combination of these two areas will allow an environment to have the ability to reconfigure itself and automate physical change to respond, react, adapt, and be interactive. The inherent sensing, processing and output are now beginning to be taken out of the computer and are instead, embedded in the objects of everyday life themselves. The individual devices therefore have a remarkable ability to communicate with each other even while being specifically task oriented. Decentralization then is a powerful control strategy for such systems of individually networked devices (in this case) whereby there is no central control system, and consequentially, the more the system relies on lateral relationships, the less it can rely on overall commands. The beauty of such distributed control is that when it is applied to a large system, there is a potential for emergent behaviour. An emergent behaviour can occur when a number of simple systems operate in an environment that forms more complex behaviours as a collective. The rules of response can be very simple and the rules for interaction between each system can be very simple but the combination can produce interactions that become emergent and very difficult to predict.
LINK : Definition of Technical Objectives of the Course