The phenomenological boundary

Missing from many of these efforts is the understanding of how boundaries physically behave. The definition of boundary that people typically accept is one similar to that offered by the Oxford English Dictionary: a real or notional line marking the limits of an area. As such, the boundary is static and defined, and its requirement for legibility (marking) prescribes that it is a tangible barrier – thus a visual artifact.

For physicists, however, the boundary is not a thing, but an action. Environments are understood as energy fields, and the boundary operates as the transitional zone between different states of an energy field. As such, it is a place of change as an environment’s energy field transitions from a high-energy to
low-energy state or from one form of energy to another.

Boundaries are therefore, by definition, active zones of mediation rather than of delineation. We can’t see them, nor can we draw them as known objects fixed to a location. Breaking the paradigm of the hegemonic ‘material as visual artifact’ requires that we invert our thinking; rather than simply visualizing the end result, we need to imagine the transformative actions and interactions.

What was once a blue wall could be simulated by a web of tiny color-changing points that respond to the position of the viewer as well as to the location of the sun. Large HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) systems could be replaced with discretely located micro-machines that respond directly to the heat exchange of a human body. In addition, by investigating the transient behavior of the material, we challenge the privileging of the static planar surface.
The ‘boundary’ is no longer delimited by the material surface, instead it may be reconfigured as the zone in which change occurs. The image of the building boundary as the demarcation between two different environments defined as single states – a homogeneous
interior and an ambient exterior – could possibly be replaced by the idea of multiple energy environments fluidly interacting with the moving body. Smart materials, with their transient behavior and ability to respond to energy stimuli, may eventually enable the selective creation and design of an individual’s sensory  experiences.Are architects in a position or state of development to implement and exploit this alternative paradigm, or, at the very least, to rigorously explore it? At this point, the answer is most probably no, but there are seeds of opportunity from on-going physical research and glimpses of the future use of
the technology from other design fields. Advances in physics have led to a new understanding of physical phenomena, advances in biology and neurology have led to new discoveries regarding the human sensory system. Furthermore, smart materials have been comprehensively experimented with and rapidly adopted in many other fields – finding their way into products and uses as diverse as toys and automotive components.

Our charge is to examine the knowledge gained in other disciplines, but develop a framework for its application that is suited to the unique needs and possibilities of architecture.

The contemporary design context

Orthographic projection in architectural representation inherently privileges the surface. When the three-dimensional world is sliced to fit into a two-dimensional representation, the physical objects of a building appear as flatplanes. Regardless of the third dimension of these planes, we recognize that the eventual occupant will rarely see anything other than the surface planes behind which the structure and systems are hidden.

While the common mantra is that architects design space the reality is that architects make (draw) surfaces. This privileging of the surface drives the use of materials in two profound ways. First is that the material is
identified as the surface: the visual understanding of architecture is determined by the visual qualities of the
material.
Second is that because architecture is synonymous with surface – and materials are that surface – we essentially think of materials as planar. The result is that we tend to consider materials in large two-dimensional swaths: exterior cladding, interior sheathing. Many of the materials that we do not see, such as insulation or vapor barriers, are still imagined and configured as sheet products. Even materials
that form the three-dimensional infrastructure of the building, such as structural steel or concrete, can easily be
represented through a two-dimensional picture plane as we tend to imagine them as continuous or monolithic
entities.
Most current attempts to implement smart materials in architectural design maintain the vocabulary of the twodimensional surface or continuous entity and simply propose smart materials as replacements or substitutes for more conventional materials. For example, there have been many proposals to replace standard curtain wall glazing with an electrochromic glass that would completely wrap the building facade. The reconsideration of smart material implementation through another paradigm of material deployment has yet to fall under scrutiny. One major constraint that limits our current thinking about materials is the accepted belief that the spatial envelope behaves like a boundary.

We conceive of a room as a container of ambient air and light that is bounded or differentiated by its surfaces; we consider the building envelope to demarcate and separate the exterior environment from the interior environment. The presumption that the physical boundaries are one and the same as the spatial boundaries has led to a focus on highly integrated, multifunctional systems for fac¸ades as well as for many interior partitions such as ceilings and floors.

In 1981, Mike Davies popularized the term ‘polyvalent wall’, which described a fac¸ade that could protect from the sun, wind and rain, as well as provide insulation, ventilation and daylight.2 His image of a wall section sandwiching photovoltaic grids, sensor layers, radiating sheets, micropore membranes and weather skins has influenced many architects and engineers into pursuing the ‘super fac¸ade’ as evidenced by the burgeoning use of double skin systems. This pursuit has also led to a quest for a ‘supermaterial’ that can integrate together the many diverse functions required by the newly complex fac¸ade. Aerogel has emerged as one of these new dream materials for architects: it insulates well yet still transmits light, it is extremely lightweight yet can maintain its shape.

Many national energy agencies are counting on aerogel to be a linchpin for their future building energy conservation strategies, notwithstanding its prohibitive cost, micro-structural brittleness and the problematic of its high insulating value, which is only advantageous for part of the year and can be quite detrimental at other times.