ABSTRACT
Contemporary practice The number of publications, blogs and projects indicate an increasing contemporary interest in architectural kinetics, which follows – after a signifi cant gap – a similar fl urry of design experimentation undertaken in the 1970s. How has the current generation of designers considered the opportunities of kinetics? Despite the large body of material, the emphasis here on composition and facade enables the undertaking of a directed slice through current activity to address this question. As evidenced by a recent survey, Interactive Architecture by Fox and Kemp, the majority of activity is generally concerned with the functional possibilities and enabling technology, rather than investigation of kinetics per se. Fox and Kemp present a comprehensive overview of current interactive architecture (including kinetic facades), through a simple distinction between ‘ways and means’. That is, the multiple ways in which kinetics are manifest, ‘folding, sliding, expanding, shrinking and transforming’ and the means by which kinetics is realized – the apparatus, ranging from mechanical to chemical technology.1 The questions that drive this study are more to do with affordance and potential. What range of kinetic composition do the kinetic types afford? How have designers exploited this potential?
