Return
to work |
E-Mail
This Article
 |
After graduating from the Architectural Association in London, German architect Tobi Schneidler found a new interest in digital media. While teaching courses in both England and Sweden, he began researching and directing projects at the Interactive Institute Smart Studio in Stockholm, where he honed an interest in interactive technologies. The architect’s projects explore this interest at different scales, and it soon grew into the idea of interaction between two homes, dubbed the RemoteHome.
The RemoteHome is a communication system that connects homes in two different cities. Schneidler describes the project as “a home that stretches beyond borders and helps friends to stay in touch, literally, through tangible and sensual communication.” Discreet sensors are placed in objects around the house and transmit messages to users at the other end through the Internet. Schneidler explains, “These messages subsequently surface on the opposite end as tactile and visual cues on furniture and other physical surfaces.” For instance, “ambient scribbles” on an interactive light table will affect a wall of lights placed in the alternate apartment.
In 2003, apartment models were set up simultaneously at the Science Museum in London and at the Raumlabor in Berlin. At these exhibitions, distant audiences were able to interact with each other in real time. Schneidler says that audiences liked the idea of being connected and “appreciated that communication is built into the tactility of objects instead of through intrusive items such as video walls or cameras.”
In time, Schneidler expects that the residents of the RemoteHome will begin to recognize the nuances in the signals sent back and forth. “The artifacts respond to the way they are used,” he explains. “The devices react to a combination of different effects and are not simply an on/off transmission.” For instance, the force with which one resident sits on the couch in one apartment will be able to be felt and interpreted by a resident on the couch in the other apartment.
This year, Schneidler intends to take the showpieces from the exhibitions and implement them into the apartments he shares with friends in London and Stockholm. “Basically,” laughs Schneidler, “I will become my own guinea pig.”
 |
|
|
|
|