ABSTRACT This paper describes the authors’ exploration and experimentation with cellular pneumatic aggregates for kinetic, environmentally responsive envelope systems. The work is situated within the history and technology of pneumatic structures, biological paradigms, the agency and aesthetics of material, information translation, and the tension between performance and affect within responsive environments. The paper elaborates on the physical and computational development of novel pneumatic systems, experimentation with their interactive capabilities, and a recently completed installation, Nervous Ether , a pneumatic spatial envelope that operates as an instrument to register and communicate remote environmental information while also developing affective interaction with inhabitants.

ABSTRACT This paper develops a brief historical account of the architectural development of auditory space and identifies the “soundsphere” as an acoustic project that connects the interrelationships between material, spatial form and sound. The instrumental design of the soundsphere has focused on three types of shells: hard, static, and inflexible; physically manipulable; and immaterial (or electroacoustic). This frames a disciplinary and historical context for Resonant Chamber, a prototype-based design research project that develops a kinetic and interactive interior envelope system aimed at transforming the acoustic environment through dynamic spatial, material, and electroacoustic technologies.