Mechanical empathy: kinetic architectural textile environments

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Sculptor and architect Philip Beesley and mechatronics engineer Robert Gorbet propose to collaborate on an interdisciplinary body of creative work and research that integrates digitally-fabricated lightweight architectural textile structures and interactive microprocessor technology. These projects are a hybrid of sculpture, engineering, and architecture that focus on creating flexible structural meshwork densely populated with arrays of mechanisms that can modify the environment and interact with the user. The general objective is to find a new role for architectural environments, transforming portions of static buildings into active, responsive surfaces. A corresponding ethical objective is to find sensitive, renewed relationships for human occupants interconnected with their surrounding environment. The program will produce a series of public gallery and landscape installations and prototype building envelope modification layers accompanied by an ambitious schedule of specialized development workshops, seminars with graduate students, and international dissemination. Philip Beesley practices digital media art and experimental architecture in parallel with his teaching and research at the University of Waterloo in Cambridge, and has been distinguished by the Prix de Rome in Architecture and numerous publications. Engineer Robert Gorbet is an expert in innovative mechatronics and interactive systems and an award-winning teacher with substantial experience in cross-disciplinary collaborations. 'Active1 responsive functions offered by Corbet's expertise in advanced shape-memory alloy actuators and interactive systems will directly complement Beesley's aesthetic achievements in digital fabrication and textile-like lightweight structures.