News

ANFA INTERFACES

May 19, 2010

Design in a World Gone Digital

Presented by David Kirsh, PhD

6:00 pm

University of California, San Diego
Calit2, Atkinson Hall (Scroll to bottom of page for Directions)
La Jolla, CA

Free Admission

Reservations Recommended
to anfarch@gmail.com

Special Feature!

Short tours of the 3D immersive Virtual Reality CAVE at Calit2 will be offered beginning at 5pm. A demonstration of the newly developed CAVE-CAD software for designing architectural environments will be featured. The development of CAVE-CAD was made possible by a generous gift from HMC Architects.

Reservations are REQUIRED for a tour of the CAVE facility – please email anfarch@gmail.com to reserve your spot.

As the world becomes more digital, things that were once inert become responsive. Computational assets are embedded in matter.Walls and surfaces can display; materials can deform and actuate; spaces can sense.With all this potential, how should we think about design? A start is to appreciate that the environments we build are not just containers of activities; they are our partners, and often have a strong influence on outcomes. Work and play are interactive. A profound challenge is to understand human activity at faster time scales than architects and designers typically do.I will argue that the cognitive dimensions of activity are becoming increasingly important and can reshape how to think about design. This applies to our kitchens and homes as much as medical venues, school rooms, offices and retail stores.Examples that will be discussed include: lighting that adjusts its intensity level and color profile to your level of stress or your activity needs; kitchens that adapt to cognitive needs during cooking, offering recipe guidance, real-time monitoring; smart desks in offices; smart toys to facilitate physical thinking; eating areas that support telepresence for distributed dining; game/entertainment rooms; acuity adaptable hospital rooms.

David Kirsh, PhD, is Professor in the Cognitive Science Department at UC San Diego, where he heads the Interactive Cognition Lab.He has a doctorate from Oxford University and did post doctoral work at the Artificial Intelligence Lab in MIT. His methods include doing close ethnographic studies of dancers, cooking, nursing and other everyday activities, and then building computational models.He has studied the context of work, the benefits of neat vs. scruffy desks, the promise of context aware venues, and has written extensively on how people are closely coupled to the outside world, and how they rely on this coupling to solve problems, to make decisions and to cope with complexity. His work is described at his website, http://adrenaline.ucsd.edu/kirsh

Commentary by Joyce Bromberg

Joyce Bromberg is the former director of WorkSpace Futures (Research) for Steelcase Inc., the global leader in the office furniture industry. Joyce was responsible for all Human Centered Design Research for Steelcase North America, Nurture by Steelcase and The Educational Solutions Group. Sometimes called "Corporate Anthropology", this activity utilized her expertise in observation, analysis and synthesis and her 30 years of industry experience to help Steelcase develop new products, services and experiences. Prior to this, she was director of Space-Planning Research and Environment Design. In this role she was responsible for all research and development activities related to space planning, the design of Steelcase environments, and was the lead developer of Community-Based Planning, a pioneering space-planning methodology and web-based tool set.

Directions to Atkinson Hall and Parking Lot P502

Take Interstate 5 to the Genesee Avenue exit
Go West on Genesee Avenue
Turn Left at the North Torrey Pines Road stoplight
Turn Left at the North Point Drive stoplight (There should be signs from here)
Stop at the Visitor Information Center on your Right and PURCHASE A PARKING PERMIT
Continue on North Point Drive
Turn Right onto Hopkins Drive
Turn Left onto Voigt Drive
Turn Left at Engineers Lane into parking lot P502
(If you reach Equality Lane you have gone too far)

The mission of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture is to promote and advance knowledge that links neuroscience research to a growing understanding of human responses to the built environment.