Emergence of Interactive and Dynamic Architecture

Dynamic, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is: “Of or pertaining to force producing motion: often opposed to static.”[1] From this definition, it is then possible to interpret dynamic architecture as a class of architecture pertaining to a space that is able to employ motion. This contrasts with the conventional static sense of architecture, where people typically associate buildings with defined walls and thresholds. The origin of this association perhaps comes from the origin of architecture itself, where its purpose was that of a shelter against the unstable nature, to allow humanity to live in a space of control and order. Abraham Akkerman briefly touched upon this in his article “Urban Void and the Deconstruction of Neo-Platonic City-Form,” in which he relates the two facets of city form—urban constructs and urban voids—with what Friedrich Nietzsche showed as the two impulses of human psyche—the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

“He called the two impulses the Apollonian and the Dionysian, respectively. The spatial attributes of the human temperament, epitomized by Apollo, the god of colonies and of city-walls, correspond to harmony, order, reason, certainty and stability. Capriciousness and turbulence, expressive of Dionysus, the bisexual god of wine, on the other hand animate euphoric and rapturous attributes of the human character, involving unpredictable outbursts tempered by intervals of quiet (Zeitlin, 1982). It is only a small conceptual step to relate the mind’s spatial disposition to a planned shelter and its temporal outlook to raw nature and open space. […] It is from within the tension between the turbulence and uncertainty of nature’s ferocity, and the firmness and security of a human-made shell, that the intellectual quandary of uniformity amid diversity, and of permanence amid change, arose. […] The origin of the mind city composite, thus, seems to be traceable to mutual relationship between nature’s peril and a thought about, or a metal image of, a shelter against it.”[2]

Akkerman contrasts the “firmness and security of a human-made shell,” to the “turbulence and uncertainty of nature’s ferocity;” describing the shelter with words such as harmony, order, reason, certainty and stability, while describing nature as raw and open, relating it to that of Dionysus, who can be expressed by words such as capriciousness and turbulence. While it is unlikely Akkerman had dynamic architecture in mind, it can be inferred from his passage the archetypal static quality of architecture and the dynamic quality of nature. Dynamic architecture then can adopt both archetypes, becoming a more fluid form of stability and security. This merger of the two archetypes presents an interesting repositioning of agency, which proposes a mirror of what Akkerman phrases as “the intellectual quandary of uniformity amid diversity, and of permanence amid change.”[3] Instead of “uniformity amid diversity,” dynamic architecture would instead potentially introduce uncertainty within