Communications of the ACM
Social Media Garden Is First Step in Creating 'emotional' Buildings
The University's of Lincoln's Science Technology Architecture Networks research project is allowing computer scientists and architects to explore whether architecture can reflect and map human emotions.
Credit: University of Lincoln
Computer scientists and architects at the University of Lincoln are exploring whether architecture is able to reflect and map human emotions through the Science Technology Architecture Networks research project.
The team has created a garden that consists of an articulating raw steel structure, which sits vertically and horizontally, and is controlled by responses on Twitter. Posts using the #gardenup hashtag are translated into movements of the garden's mechanical landscape.
Duncan Rowland from the School of Computer Science developed the software, which aims to intercept and expose some of this data in a tangible representation.
The researchers foresee a building one day using social media to monitor a person's emotional state and then modify its structure in response. "For example, if we feel like wearing a big cozy jumper and sipping a cup of boiling hot soup, it will turn the temperature down and open a window," says the School of Architecture's Richard M. Wright. "Buildings may also begin to reflect the mood of a populace by changing color or shape, constantly remapping our perception of our urban environment, with facades becoming animated, reflective, and mobile in response to communal desires and emotions."
The garden also could serve as a prototype for the future development of smart buildings.
From University of Lincoln
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