Architectural space as an open, adaptable system: A design experiment

Abstract

Flexible and adaptable spaces have been a field of interest in western architecture since the 1930s and Modernism’s “Open plan.” Even though it started as a design problem, as cybernetics became a more active part of the design process, adaptable space became dependent on technology and mechanical systems. A lot of methods tend to diminish the role of architectural design and offer deterministic implementations that limit the user’s creative freedom and interaction with the adaptable system. This study explores how adaptable space can be approached through design and how adaptability can be implemented in existing spaces through a computational approach. The paper is structured in two parts, the analysis, and the concept method. The first part includes the literacy review and known architectural examples of adaptability. The second part focuses on proposing a design method for approaching adaptable spaces with a high degree of user creative freedom. The method is tested through a case study regarding the implementation of a spatial adaptable system in a 1970s apartment.