sensing matter.
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Sensing Matter is a workshop exploring rule-based design and assembly of wooden structures. Pablo Miranda Carranza and Åsmund Gamlesæter with Letizia Jaccheri, Knut Einar Larsen and Jose Cabral Filho. 25-29 Sept. 2006. The workshop is part of the course 1-2-TRE:6 at NTNU.
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Background:
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Sensing Matter is a workshop for architecture and engineering students in which we explore assembly methods augmented through the use of microprocessors, sensors and digit displays.

The origins of Computer Aided Design (CAD) can be traced back to the decade of the sixties; While groups such as SuperStudio, Archigram or Coop Himmelblau where re-presenting the relations between architecture, technology and society, others such as the Architecture Machine Group members were developing experimental practices which incorporated computational technology and architecture, and which were seminal to the development of CAD in the field.

If architectural CAD can be seen as a result of the relation between architecture and the technology of the big, expensive and scarce computers of the 60s,what different uses and possibilities do substantially different presence , size and awareness of computers today , 40 years later?

Smart dust, Sensor Networks, Wearable computers.. they are all part of what has been described by Alan Kay as the third computer revolution (after mainframe computers and personal computers), and also known as Ubiquitous computing. If the number of computers in the world during four decades ago was limited to those owned by corporations, universities and the military, computation today is everywhere, when the number of processors produced every year is equivalent to the amount of people in the world. By the end of the eighties, according to Mark Weiser, who defined the term 'ubiquitous computing', it was possible to find 40 microprocessors in the middle class U.S. home, inside digital clocks, Kitchen appliances, videos and cameras...the number is expectedly much higher today, with the pervasiveness of RFID, and an increasing number of digital media equipment.

Whereas CAD, a result of the first computer paradigm, is through the development of BIMs, or Building Information Models, in the process of removing even further decision making from the building site, the incorporation of real time sensor intelligence in to building materials and components can allow part of the design process to take place in-situ, either as a complement and refinement of BIMs or as open process contrasting with the closeness of the BIM paradigm.

Thus, what we are trying to sketch in this workshop are a number possible scenarios, potential hypothesis and likely proposals resulting from the incorporation of this 'third computer revolution' in architecture, in the form of sensor intelligences interacting with the materialities of wood, in this particular case. The conclusions we may reach can also be then extrapolated to other specific materials and situations.

Important technological references are, among others, research fields such as that of Smart dust, which investigates the possibilities of computers so small and cheap that large numbers of them could be distributed in an environment, or ubiquitous computing, which deals with the incorporation of computers in to cloths, furniture, pets and other everyday objects. As mentioned above, the development of RFID technology in the last years is another important reference.

Iteration:Possible scenarios.
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The aim for the workshop is to test how an assembly process, including the people involved as well as the components to be assembled, could learn how to 'grow' or assemble itself. The conceptual tool for this will be the principle of iteration. An iteration is simply a repetition of a number of steps in a process, such as in a computer program. In this case, an iteration would be the rules that will take a certain situation at the start of the iteration, lets say components being in certain state, to another situation, which will in its turn will become the starting point for the next iteration.

A useful metaphor for understanding an iterative process of making or formation is that of anthills, or even the growth of cities, which can be seen as an iterative, adaptive process, instead of a construction or an assembly process that it is based in the translation of a geometric representation (a drawing or a 3D model) in to a building. Ideas and prototypes for possible self-assembling constructions can also be tested, which, as the Cedric Price examples of the Fun Palace or the Generator project don't need to be technologically far fetched, since these were already possible in the sixties and seventies respectively.

Even if some of this technology and specially the critical mass it has achieved in society are quite recent, the ideas underlying are not new: an inspiration for the workshop are works such as John Frazer's Universal Constructor project , Cedric Price's Generator project or Architecture Machine Group's SEEK from 1969.
In general a number of non-architectural projects involving modular intelligence and sensors are also interesting as references, such as Digital Clay.

Tools and Technology.
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For our research we have developed some modules that have processing capabilities and a number of interfaces that we would like to use in the workshop. The interfaces can be used for wireless or wired communication, sensors and actuators. In the workshop we will focus on a number of sensors and one type of ‘actuator’ - 7 segment LED displays.

The modules are Arduino compatible, and in fact we have based the module around the 'Open Source' or more correctly the 'Open Hardware' schematics of some of the Arduino hardware.

For the workshop we will establish a framework in which we provide a software that is written in Arduino (Simple transformations from a sensor input into an LED output).

We are not planning to teach in detail how to use Arduino; we will demonstrate its use and hopefully some of the participants will be interested enough, after seen the possibilities, to try to learn how to use it. If the students already know how to program and learn the basic syntax of Arduino themselves they are much welcome to change the code we provide, but it is not required or expected. You can also find, if you are interested, an introduction to programming.

Another important material for the workshop will obviously be wood. Wood should be looked at then as a 'processing' material, capable of calculating its own bending, compression and shape modifications responsive to forces, humidity or temperature. The properties of wood processed in different forms (laminated, natural, as paper or fibreboard) should be thought in consideration with the different sensors and the iterative processes.

Every group will receive a small 'kits' in plastic boxes, with a number of sensors, electronic components and prototyping boards (and a programmable Arduino board). Some of the sensor examples will be: Photo transistors, which sense light, Potentiometer which we will use for sensing Angles and positions, and Piezoelectric sensors for sensing pressure and loads.

We also will provide 40 PCBs for our modules and the components and tools needed to assemble them. This means that each group can use 6 modules and have 2 spares.

Organisation and Schedule.
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15 participants make up five groups.

The input of each group will be a unique sensor and a transformation of that sensor into 1-digit numbers. The group will have to come up with a scenario and to design prototypes in wood incorporating the input in an assembly process, as well as the rules for the assembly. For example: if the modules have light sensors which indicate their light exposure during the day, one could lay the modules in any way and according to their light exposure one could decide for example to move the ones receiving less light to areas where other panels are receiving more light. This would constitute an iteration of the assembly process, which carried without modifications, would very easily become an evolutionary process with the possible output of a configuration in which the modules are all exposed as much as possible to light. The same principle can be used with for example temperature, or less light, or any other sensor. This could constitute an assembly process in which components arrive to a site and then without plans but instead through rules, iteratively find their place. The components could be those of a light structure, or movable elements like moulds for concrete casting, that once they 'find their place' can be fixed.

Schedule:
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Exhibition.
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The final result should be something that can be exhibited at the conference of The Norwegian Association in November with the thematic of Architecture and Technology.

Blog:
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An important tool for recording and shearing the progress of your work during the workshop will be the blog. Each group will set a separate blog (we will get an introduction to it the first day) that will be used for submitting and publishing images, diagrams, sketches, comments, schematics of circuits, procedures, results and code. Entries to the blog should be made daily.

Instructions for setting up your group blog here.

References and links:

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tools:
Arduino.
Wiring.
Processing.

Resources:
LowTech.
Make, hacking technology.
InstantSOUP.
hack a day.
Physical computing at NYU.
Tetsuo Kogawa.

Architecture references:
John Frazer's Universal Constructor.
the Generator project.
SEEK.
Digital Clay.

Design references:
transformations.
hehe.
Jürg Lehni.
Interaction Design Institute IVREA.
we-make-money-not-art.
Physical computing at NYU.
Tiletoy.
MIT, Media Lab, Tangible media.
Natalie Jeremijenko, live wire.
ArtBots.
Loop.PH.
Ralf Schreiber.
kram/weisshaar.
Åsmund Gamlesæter.
haque design and research.
Aether Architecture.
Krets.
armyofclerks.
Interaction Design 3; Sensors and Senses.
Smart Studio, Interactive Institute.

Material shops:
farnell.
elfa.
Clas Ohlson.
Conrad.
Spark Fun.