Ada: Buildings as Organisms

Kynan Eng, Andreas Bäbler, Ulysses Bernardet, Mark Blanchard, Adam Briska, Marcio Costa, TobiDelbrück, Rodney Douglas, Klaus Hepp, David Klein, Jonatas Manzolli*, Matti Mintz* *, Thomas Netter,

Fabian Roth, Klaus Wassermann, Adrian Whatley, Aaron Wittmann, Paul Verschure

Institute of Neuroinformatics, University/ETH ZurichWinterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland

www.ini.ethz.ch/~expo

* Nucleo Interdisciplinar de Comunicacao Sonora, Campinas SP 13036-300, Brazil** Psychobiology Research Unit, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel

Abstract

Buildings are usually conceived as expressing a static functionality where users are required toadapt to its pre-defined properties. This view of architecture is outdated. Buildings can beconceived and constructed as perceiving, acting and adapting entities not unlike biologicalsystems. Although several existing projects have aimed at developing "smart" rooms or buildings,in most of these attempts information technology is used in a strictly local way. "Ada: Intelligentspace" goes beyond this utilitarian perspective and aims to develop a space that can dynamicallychange its overall functionality and quality through an active dialog with its visitors.

Named after Lady Ada Lovelace, one of the pioneers of computer science, Ada is conceived as anartificial organism that can interact and communicate with her visitors. She is based on currentresearch in neuroinformatics. By means of her senses, i.e. vision, audition and touch, Ada will beable to locate and identify visitors. Her effectors, i.e. lights and sounds, will allow her to providecues to visitors and express her internal states in an emotional language. Key functionalities ofAda are: to balance visitor density and flow; to identify, track and guide “in teresting” visitors; togroup selected visitors in space; and to play games with visitors. Ada has to achieve thesebehavioural goals by establishing active interactions with her visitors.

Ada is being constructed for the Swiss national exhibition Expo.02 (May 15-October 20, 2002)which is held once every 30 years. As an exhibition project, Ada aims to initiate a public debate ofthe application and implication of brain-based technology on our future society. This paperdescribes the concepts behind Ada, some of her key sensor and effector technologies, and how thiscollection of devices is integrated using a neuronal control system. Examples wil l be discussedfrom recent tests of this system during the Zürich festival of science and Zürifaescht.

Introduction

From the beginning of civilisation, humans havebeen installing infrastructure in their buildings. Thisinfrastructure – physical, plumbing, electrical,environmental, communications – is designed tosupport the intended uses of that building. The usersof the building serve as the regulatory intelli gencethat makes all of the subsystems work together toserve the users’ needs. Until the last years of the20th century, the structure and organisation ofbuildings was sufficiently simple and static thatintermittent control by users provided more thanenough computational power to maintain buildingintegrity and operation.

However, this situation is changing. In manybuildings, especially large multi-purpose buildingssuch as airports, shopping malls and skyscrapers, thenumber of dynamically modifiable components is

increasing sharply. Both the structure and theoperation of these buildings are becomingdynamically reconfigurable. Such reconfiguration isexpected to occur under constraints of power,resources and the functional requirements ofindividual users. The growing demand for dynamicreconfiguration of building services is placingincreasing demands upon the people controllingthose services. To reduce the amount of activehuman intervention needed to keep things runningsmoothly, more of the necessary data processing isbeing delegated to automatic devices. Some of thesedevices form part of the building’s permanentinfrastructure and some are objects (or organisms)that pass through the building with varying residencetimes. Modern industrialised societies are rapidlyfilli ng their buildings with interconnected devices,with an ever-increasing number of subtleinteractions and side effects. But what happenswhen the components of a building reach a critical

density in space and interconnectedness? Twothings then occur:

1. Users begin to observe correlations between theactions of different subsystems of the building,which reach a certain level of coherence.

2. The overall operation of the building becomesopaque; non-experts are no longer able tocontrol it. They can, however, perform actionson subsystems and observe the consequences,looking for correlations.

Under these conditions, the users of the buildingmust engage in a dialogue with the building in orderto achieve their goals, rather than simply controllinga few parameters. In the course of this dialogue, theusers begin to treat the building as a single entity,and attribute purposeful cognition to the processingunderlying the building’s actions. From theviewpoint of the user, the building becomes morethan the sum of its shell and subsystems; it appearsto be alive. This change in our relationship withartefacts is not limited to buildings. In the futuremore of the objects we create will become moreautonomous in completing more complex tasks.

The project “Ada: intelli gent space” is anexploration in the creation of li ving architecture. Itcan be distinguished from existing “smart office” or“smart building” projects in four main ways. Firstly,the level of behavioural integration being attemptedis far more extensive than in other projects.Secondly, the user interaction with the space isimmersive rather than invisible – the building doesnot quietly serve its users’ needs in the background,but becomes an active participant in their lives.Thirdly, the functionality of the space in itsinteractions with users is not fi xed, but time-varyingand adaptive. Finally, and most importantly, thespace has its own goals which it actively tries toachieve by engaging its users.

Ada is the product of interdisciplinary research intothe functioning of the brain at the Institute ofNeuroinformatics (INI). The mission of the instituteis to discover the underlying principles of brainfunction and to implement these principles inartificial systems that interact with the real world.

The Space and its Users

Ada is intended to stimulate public discussion ofbrain-like technologies and the social implications oftheir usage. “She” is being constructed as an exhibitat the Swiss Expo.02 in the town of Neuchatel, on apurpose-built platform over a lake bearing the samename as the town (Figure 1). She will functioncontinuously for 10 hours a day over 6 months. Theexhibit’ s components are shown in the table below.

Region Area Description

Conditioningtunnel (entrycorridor)

65 m2 Visitor waiting area, includinga staged visitor introduction tothe components of Ada andtheir basic functions

Interactionspace

175m2

Octagonal room where allinteraction with Ada occurs

Voyeur area 81 m2 Corridor around interactionspace so visitors can observewithout interacting directly

Brainarium 45 m2 Semi-technical display roomshowing internal processingstates of Ada, using theobservatory metaphor.Includes windows so thatpeople can see back into theinteraction space.

Explanatorium 45 m2 Explanation and discussion ofkey technologies behind Ada

Lab area 73 m2 Computer room, working areafor operators

The overall goal of the exhibit is to entertain andinform each visitor during an average 10-15 minutevisit. This is a difficult task, as Ada’s visitors wil lhave a wide variety of ages and educational/culturalbackgrounds. What they do have in common is thatthey have paid to see Ada, and expect educationaland entertainment value for money. Most will havelittle expertise in domains such as architecture andneuroinformatics, but many will have widelyvarying pre-conceived ideas and opinions aboutthese topics, often based on public media hyperbole.Some of these opinions wil l be technically infeasibleor considered irrelevant by “experts”. It is ofparamount importance that Ada does not disturb hervisitors’ preconceptions too much without givingthem new food for thought. Ideally, each visitor willleave Ada with a positive impression, gained fromher entertainment value and a sense of havingsomething novel and challenging to think aboutregarding the future of brain-like technologies.

Sensors & Effectors

All organisms need some means for collectinginformation about the world. Ada will be equippedwith sensors that mimic some of the capabilities oforganisms: vision, hearing and touch. In the spacethe following sensors are applied:

Figure 1: The Neuchatel exhibition area for Expo.02 inSwitzerland. Ada will be located under the left-most ovalroof structure (from Expo.02).

• Vision: Ada has a vision matrix – a grid ofcameras mounted above the floor pointedvertically downwards that can be used to watchvisitors everywhere in the space. A number ofpan-tilt cameras called gazers are also availablefor Ada to use for attentional, focusedinteractions with specific individual visitors.

• Hearing: There are clusters of three fi xedmicrophones in the ceiling plane, with whichAda is able to identify and locate sound sourcesby triangulation. Directional microphones arealso mounted on the gazers. Some forms ofsound and word recognition will be available

• Touch: Ada has a “skin” of hexagonal pressure-sensitive floor tiles [1] that can detect thepresence of visitors.

As well as sensing, Ada can also express herself andact upon her environment in the following ways:

• Visual: Ada uses a 360° ring of LCD projectorsto express her internal states visually to visitors.There is also a ring of ambient li ghts for settingthe overall visual emotional tone of the space.Local visual effects can be created using theRBG coloured neon lights in each floor tile inAda’s skin, rather like a chameleon.

• Audio: Ada is able to generate a wide range ofsound effects. She expresses herself usingsound and music composed in real-time on thebasis of her internal states and sensory input.The composition is generated using a systemcalled Roboser [2]. She is also able to performa simple form of “baby talk” which imitateswhat she hears from her visitors.

• Touch: Ada has a number of pan-tilt movablelight fingers for pointing at individual visitors orindicating different locations in the space. Forreasons of safety and human psychology, wehave chosen not to have Ada act on herenvironment using forceful actuators such asrobot arms.

Behaviours & Interactions

Sensors and effectors alone are not enough for Adato convince visitors that she shares properties of anatural organism. To achieve the feel of anorganism, the operation of the space needs to be:

• Coherent• Real-time• Understandable to most visitors (the

conditioning tunnel plays an important role herein providing initial visitor priming)

• Sufficiently rich in depth of possibleinteractions that visitors feel the presence of akind of basic unitary intelligence

To provide for a natural progression in visitorinteraction, Ada incorporates at least four basicbehavioural functions. First, she will trackindividual visitors or groups of visitors, possibly(but not necessarily) giving them an indication thatthey are being tracked. At the same time, she willidentify those visitors who are more “i nteresting”than others because of their responsiveness to simplecues that Ada uses to probe their reactions. Thesepeople are encouraged to form a group in part of thespace through the use of various cues. When theconditions are appropriate, Ada can then play anumber of group-based games with her visitors. Allthe time she evaluates the results of her actions andexpresses emotional states accordingly, and tries toregulate the distribution and flow of visitors. Figure2 depicts an artist’s impression of what theinteraction space could look like.

It is important to realise that the above scenario isnot a static progression, but a set of interconnected,interdependent, simultaneously evolving internalprocesses. The underlying software is a mixture ofsimulated neural networks, agent-based systems andconventional procedural or object-oriented software.

Figure 2: Artist’s impression of visitor interactions with Ada in the main space (from Vehovar & Jauslin Architektur).

Integration & Testing

Exploring unknown territory in organism-li kearchitecture with a system as large as Ada could notoccur without experience with smaller systems. Aswell as the continuously developing demo space atINI, since 1998 a number of increasingly largepublic system tests were run to evaluate thefeasibility and scalability of the underlyingarchitecture, gauge visitor impressions, and testdifferent interaction scenarios.

One of these tests was at the Zurich Festival ofScience (Zurich main station, May 2001, 100,000visitors), where a system called Gulliver was run forthree days in collaboration with the Remote SensingLaboratories in the Department of Geography of theUniversity of Zurich. Gulli ver contained li ghtfingers that could follow visitors, and a floor used asa large collective joystick to control a simulatedfli ght over Switzerland (Figure 3). The main goal ofthis test was to gain experience in the technical andlogistical aspects of running an exhibition.

Züifaescht, the triennial Zurich city festival in July2001, provided the setting for the following systemtest. This time a rather more Ada-li ke system calledGulliver II was deployed over three days, includingan approximation of a raised “brainarium” area,from where spectators could observe the space andsome displays showing the internal operations ofGulliver. Some basic Ada functionalities weretested, such as visitor tracking with floor tiles andlight fingers, displaying visitor trajectories, soundlocalisation of handclap noises and a group footballgame (Figure 4).

Overall, the two tests proved to be very useful inaffirming what the team was doing well, such asproviding good system stability and adaptability toon-site conditions. The tests also indicated areaswhere improvements were needed. The two keyissues that stood out from the results of the testswere a need for effective visitor flow control, andthe importance of communicating Ada’s intentionsclearly through the use of effective cues and visitorpre-conditioning sequences.

Outlook

In four months Ada wil l be operational whenExpo.02 opens. But even then her development willnot be complete. Apart from the usual tuning periodthat occurs with any public exhibit, Ada will beperformance art and a li ving experiment. In thebackground, data collection related to fundamentalresearch will occur using Ada as an experimentalplatform. The experiences and reactions of hervisitors will lead to as-yet unknown changes to herbehaviour, some introduced by Ada’s designers andsome from Ada herself as she adapts to her visitors.Continuing system upgrades will incrementallyincrease Ada’s capabilities. So, over the course ofExpo.02, Ada will interact with visitors, expressherself and grow – just li ke the other organismslivi ng and working at the exhibition.

Acknowledgments

Organisations supporting the Ada project include the SNFSPP program, ETH Zurich, University of Zurich, Expo.02,Manor, and Rotronic.

References

[1] Delbrück, T, Douglas, R J, Marchal, P, Verschure, P,Whatley, A M, A device for controlling a physical system,EU patent application 99120136.9-2215 (1999)[2] Wasserman, K C, Blanchard, M, Bernadet, U,Manzolli, J M, Verschure, P F M J (2000), Roboser: AnAutonomous Interactive Composition System. In: I Zannos(Ed.), Proceedings of the International Computer MusicConference (ICMC), pp. 531-534. San Francisco, CA,USA: The International Computer Music Association.

Figure 3: Overview of activity at the Zurich Festival ofScience. Visible are a light finger (top right) and itslight patterns (bottom left), floor tile joystick (centreleft) and the flight over Switzerland output (top left)

Figure 4: Visitors playing a group football game atZürifaescht. They are trying to trap the bouncing whitetile in the corner of the floor.