Designing Kinetics for Architectural Facades: State Change [Hardcover]

Architectural facades now have the potential to be literally kinetic, through automated sunscreens and a range of animated surfaces. This book explores the aesthetic potential of these new types of moving facades.

Critique of theory and practice in architecture is combined here with ideas from kinetic art of the 1960s. From this background the basic principles of kinetics are defined and are used to generate experimental computer animations. By classifying the animations, a theory of kinetic form called state change is developed. This design research provides a unique and timely resource for those interested in the capacity of kinetics to enliven the public face of architecture.

Extra material including animations can be seen at www.kineticarch.net/statechange

Part 1  1. Movement at the Periphery of Architecture  2. Kinetic Precedent  3. Systems, Fields and Reflexivity  4. Kinetic Art  Part 2  5. Decision Planes  6. Experiments with Kinetic Pattern  7. All at Sea: A Provisional Taxonomy  8. State Change

Architectural facades now have the potential to be literally kinetic, through automated sunscreens and a range of animated surfaces. This book explores the aesthetic potential of these new types of moving facades. From critique of theory and practice in architecture, discourse within kinetic arts and the generation of a series of computer animations, a theory of composition and a language of design for kinetic architectural facades is developed.

Jules Moloney is Associate Professor in Interdisciplinary Digital Design at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His research, creative practice and teaching span the fl#p