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Co-organized with professor Phillip Beesley, the Responsive Environments Colloquium at the University of Waterloo, Cambridge, Canada, aims to examine the potential of kinetic, responsive architecture. November 20–21, 2009. Presented by: Waterloo Architecture, Social Innovation Group (SiG), University of Waterloo, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Society of Waterloo Architectural Graduates (SWAG).

The Responsive Environments Colloquium aims to examine the potential of kinetic, responsive architecture. The gathering will encourage specialized development of enabling technologies, critical analysis, and defining imagery for interactive architectural structures. The researchers proposed for this exchange are specialized leaders from experimental art and architecture, mechatronics and software engineering, and environmental psychology.

The aim of this collaborative event is to develop dialogue between these disciplines, expanding the potential of common threads and translating this into practical implementation. The discussion will pursue strategies for integrating dynamic, responsive qualities into the built environment. A mechanical and generative approach to empathy is central to this work, expanding upon cultural history based on ‘dynamic’ and post-humanist paradigms, exploring renewed mutual relationships between human occupants and their surroundings.

Participants: Robert Bean – NSCAD, Halifax – Media artist, photographer, art theorist Philip Beesley – University of Waterloo – Sculptor/architect Sarah Bonnemaison – Dalhousie University Advanced Textile Lab – Architectural theorist Benjamin Bratton – UCLA Architecture – Architectural theorist Pieter Coussement – University of Ghent – Interactive artist, sensing technologies Rob Gorbet – University of Waterloo – Mechatronics engineer Andrew Hunter –Independent curator, Director Render Gallery/Dodo Lab, University of Waterloo Omar Khan – University of Buffalo, Co-Director Situated Technologies Martha Ladly – Ontario College of Art and Design – Interaction design Rebeca Méndez – UCLA Design | Media Arts – Artist Mark Sheppard – University of Buffalo Co-Director Situated Technologies – Theorist locative media Kivi Sotamaa – Visiting professor UCLA Architecture – Architect Jennifer Steinkamp – UCLA Design | Media Arts – artist