RIPLfield website (see video)

An interactive installation built at the architecture department of TU Berlin . It consisted of light and sound-scapes which respond to the actions of people in the environment and remote data from Parsons School of Design in New York. It was created as part of an investigation into how architecture can operate as a responsive, interactive environment affecting local and distant locations. The studio explored the topic of ubiquitous computing and its implications for architecture asking what architecture means to a contemporary networked society?

RIPLfield is based around an ‘interactive floor' – a field of 108 pressure sensors arranged in a 9 x 12 grid. The sensors capture data as visitors move around the floor: Each pad is activated when stepped on, and the status of the sensor field is monitored by a software program. Other software interprets the data from the field, looking for particular patterns of movement, density, and proximity within the field activity.

Depending on the interpretation of these patterns, events are triggered within the environment – patterns of light are projected onto the floor from above, and a four-channel audio soundscape is activated and influenced in speakers around the perimeter of the field. The projected light shifts in colour through the RGB spectrum according to parameters such as visitor movement, duration in a particular location, intersections with the ‘trails' of other visitors, and the remote data feed.