Exterior view of Nets 1.0 - Courtesy of Paola Zellner-Bassett
John Knuteson, Thomas Martin, and Paola Zellner-Bassett
Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture 103rd Annual Meeting
Abstract
The growing use and integration of media in architecture has generated a conversation about the role of media technologies in the manifestation of space, and their influences beyond those of the individual spectator. The paper emphasizes the preeminence of space and spatial perception in an architecture in which technology and media have become inevitably entangled. This entanglement is not seen as a disadvantage, but in fact as an opportunity to broaden the definition of space and augment the experience of the built environment. The paper focuses primarily on the project Nets, an interactive media installation that responds to climate data, and intends to encourage spatial consciousness by employing a contextual, rather than human-centric, approach. The work searches for means to engage the idea of interaction, not as an end but as a medium for spatial experience, and strengthen the role of the medium by using it as a perceptual bridge between the participant and his or her environment. The extension of the medium into larger scales promises to broaden the reach of media architecture.
