Institute For The Future

Software and the Personality of Buildings

I am writing up some scenarios for the future of "abundant computing" as Mike Liebhold has started calling the future of grid and desktop super-computing.

 

One of them I titled "Space and Place: Intelligent Environments That Grow and Develop"

Abundant computation will transform the way we design and manage the cities, homes and public spaces that we inhabit every day. Today, we think of these places as fixed, static and dumb. However, Paul Seletsky, Director of Digital Design at global architecture firm SOM, believes that in the next decade, all new buildings will begin and end their lives as a computer model. This model will guide the design process, simulate building operation, and be used to integrate sensing and operations during the building's working life. Software will in many ways become the building's 'personality' and its capabilities and shortcomings will define the experience of living and working and playing as much as the physical structure itself. Buildings will summon and manage robots, people and resources to sustain themselves materially. Agent-based models of building inhabitants will be used to help the building predict everything from lunchtime congestion on elevators to evacuation patterns during emergencies. As they age, intelligent environments will grow and develop with the human communities that inhabit them.

 

The general idea here is that software will be just as much a part of the architectural experience as "hardware". We are increasingly aware of this in the automobile industry. Is this too much of a leap?

 

Just had some major deja vu. Thought I wrote this exact post about 6 months ago but maybe not.