Interactive Architecture Lab

Graduate project is a machine that uses sound and motion to convey the same narrative as a musical score or performance. It manifests the mechanics of musical emotion to generate and break musical conventions and expectations.
In this project, Kwun Ting Wong, Wanrong Lei, Shu-Yun Liu have chosen the emotional overload of suspense translated into unpredictable outcomes as the core of the experience. They visual effects, narrative and sound methods that are frequently used in suspense films to develop a sense of suspense to design an interactive musical performance narrative machine.

Ecomorphs by is a graduate project of our Masters in Design for Performance & Interaction

In the forest, there is an expedition without a specified route. In between the trees and the subtle moss you can find mysterious glowing soft creatures. They are lively and enthusiastic, but also fragile. So they wish to be taken good care of. Audiences may slowly approach the inconspicuous corner of their existence, experiencing the uncanny and charming ambience. There will be a communication between living beings, something innocent and within reach. Noiseless and intangible.

Ecomorphs is an outdoor interactive installation made up of soft robots that are sensitive to their surrounding environment. The team modified 3D printer mechanisms to solder sheets of TPU sheets together into bespoke shapes that define the appearance and embodied performance of the soft robots. The installation utilises a variety of integrated sensing approaches that regulate air pressure inside the robot, detect human gestures, human visual attention, and observers movement around the work. This data is combined to choreograph the motion of the robots mysteriously living deep in a dark forest.

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Exploring pneumatic architecture and collective performance, PneumaCycle questions how large-scale events requiring large energy resources, could be powered by public participation. Could air captured by audience motion be transformed into the performance of kinetic architecture?

The development process consisted of intensive research in multiple areas including the design of a cycle pump system, testing of a variety of air-actuation systems, sensors and interfaces. The final outcome is an architectural proposal and a 1:10 working model that invites the public to generate power that activates a soft robotic structure.

The proposal imagines a future for event design where audience members are fully immersed in the production of a collective performance powered by their own bodies.

Researchers: Yuting Chen .chenn & Ting-yun Wu .wu_design

Supervisors: Ruairi Glynn & Parker Heyl
Project developed at

Soundtrack design: Tsu-Kuang Hsieh, Minds of Mechanics

Shooting at