The average weekly working hours within the European Union has been decreasing very steadily over the last decades, as a result of the automatization of the economy. This seems to suggest a disappearance of the necessity to work. In his New Babylon project, Constant Nieuwenhuizen has imagined a society in which the inhabitants, the Homo Ludens, are completely free of any occupational obligations. How can an architectural intervention transform an existing building in order to integrate in such new kind of society? This design question was accompanied by a research that emerged from a personal fascination. The question from this perspective was: How can certain natural processes be abstracted and translated in simple rules in order to use them in computational tools in the design process? An intervention in an remnant from an industrial era has been designed in order to suit this new kind of society. The intervention creates a new route through the building, the floors of the existing parts contain the program. This program aims to provide technological additive manufacturing tools and render them accessible to a wider public. It strives so by providing interactive user interfaces and human-robot collaborations. The intervention has been developed in close relation to the research. The computational tools created in the research have been used to design the structure. First a main volume was created which determines the composition of the atria as well as the structure. Structural analysis was applied to inform the composition and thickness of the beams. Consecutively, analysis of the utilization of these beams is used to inform its cross sections. Details as railing and balustrades are the design with the aim to extend the emerged architectural language. Because of the close relation with the research in natural processes certain art-nouveau characteristics emerged in the architectural language of the intervention. However, rather than merely decorative, they are informed, performative and functional. The emerged architectural language therefore may be referred to as ‘informed art-nouveau’. The research concludes that it’s important to acknowledge the complexity of natural processes and that they are always a part of a larger entangled system. Therefore, in order to use a natural reference in the development of computational tools it is essential to abstract an aspect that seems relevant for the project, which than needs to be translated, adjusted, and complemented in simple rules. By doing so the natural processes become merely inspirational in the architectural design. Yet they have been fundamental in the development of this project, which is evident in the emerged architectural language. For a more elaborate description as well as the animated presentation see: http://100ybp.roboticbuilding.eu/index.php/project09:Final_Presentation

With the thorough penetration of Internet, everyone has a dual identity in contemporary urban life. On one hand, urban survival pressure and high-density, planned forms of living consume the vitality of young generation; on the other hand, streaming videos, social media and online games establish their existence in another dimension. The Toronto School and other many media theorists have foreseen the impact of the Internet as a medium on behavior and society in the last century. Since the 1990s, architects and urban designers have begun to imagine the integration of architecture space and cyberspace. Later practices, in the name of interactive architecture, explored certain possibilities of architectural interactivity. But until today, the real revolution has not come in a larger scope. Research and design are aim to the impact of various interactive media derived from the Internet on living and how to use their interactivity to take the intelligence and delight of built environment to a new level in contemporary urban context. The results of study will be presented as a public building design, which is an urban cultural complex with the theme of interactive media, including functional spaces such as exhibitions, interactions, game events, esports, creative workshop, sales, and cafe, let visitors experience the knowledge, applications and trends of cyberculture. The choice of functions takes it into account that this theme has practical meanings for leading interactive architecture experiments. And its exterior and interior design embed cyber-physical system and show the characteristics and interactivity of the cyberspace to get the unity of theme and space experience. As a cyber dominant zone, it serves as a prototype to illustrate the possible impact of the Internet on society and lifestyle in the future.