Interrogating interactive and responsive architecture: The quest of a technological solution looking for an architectural problem

Abstract

Interactive Architecture and Responsive Architecture are provocative fields of investigation and have potentially disruptive and far reaching effects for architecture. However it can be argued that these fields haven’t been developed as a direct response to previously identified architectural demands. Instead, they have risen as consequence of new technology availability, with ad hoc discussions in the context of the built environment. In order to test this hypothesis, 229 publications were examined and narrowed down to 77 papers and 41 design projects, which were systematically analyzed. The primary objective of this investigation is to understand Interactive Architecture’s development with regard to justification. This understanding provides us with the basis to speculate on the possibly expanding introduction of extraneous technological solutions to the discipline of architecture. The research findings indicate a mismatch between theoretical discourse and projects being developed in those fields. They also describe the current state of Interactive Architecture research.