S'12 Thesis: Viviane Huelsmeier

Viviane Huelsmeier
M.Arch Thesis Spring 2012
Faculty Advisor: Stan Allen, Liz Diller
Project Title:  "Smart/Dumb: Amplified Architecture"

Technology's role in architecture is mainly reduced to optimization and regulation, which results in the minimization of physical interaction between our bodies and architecture, and between architecture and its context.Technology's role in architecture is self-contradictory and ‘dumb’, if you will, as it works against architecture's physicality, desensitizing our relationship to our built environment. However, if architecture is the only medium that is so inherently physical and bodily, why not use technology to amplify our physical experience of architecture?

This thesis proposes an architecture of maximum physical interaction between bodies and architecture, and between architecture and its context.

By understanding technology as an instrument of sensory amplification, technology can transform architecture into a richer experience and augment architecture's physicality.