Imagine a shade structure that closes when the sun heats it up or a house where the interior walls become lighter in the warmer days and darker on colder days. Or a roof that bends up to collect water in times of heavy rain, only to store and deploy that water during a dry season. Responsive architecture is just that: built structures that respond to their surrounding environments. These responses are not just helping the environment by offsetting carbon emissions, they also promote human well-being by improving temperature, visibility, and daily function. 

By the end of the studio, students will design a structure that uses environmental factors to transform and improve living of those in the space, also known as responsive architecture. This structure will not be static like most architecture we know, but actually move when triggered by an environmental factor such as rain, snow, heat, etc. Students will choose one of the predetermined sites in Japan, Chile, or USA, and design their intervention accordingly. To do so, students will learn about mechanical movement through origami auxetics and other forms of modeling, and research environmental elements that affect human habitation.