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      • Trans-ports 2001. ONL [Oosterhuis_Lénárd], A hyperbody is a programmable building that changes its shape and content in real time
      • ABOUT
      • What
    • Hyperbody

  • Hyperbody
    Hyperbody is a research group at the Faculty of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology directed by prof. ir. Kas Oosterhuis. The goals set for the group’s research are to explore techniques and methods for designing and building of non-standard, virtual and interactive architectures. Cutting edge techniques and methods are taught and applied by researchers and students.
    Designed and prototyped programmable buildings illustrate the paradigm shift from animation towards real-time behaviour. Hyperbody introduces interactivity not only in the process of collaborative design, but also during the use and maintenance of buildings. Hyperbody looks at all stages of the lifecycle of buildings and at the economical and ecological consequences, focusing on the development of new ideas and practical applications for interactive architecture. This leads to emergence of pro-active building bodies which act in a changing environment.
    Apart from various prototypical installations and many case study projects, Hyperbody develops protoSPACE, a vehicle for transdisciplinary research, education and design in form of a virtually augmented transaction space. protoSPACE has been installed at the Delft University of Technology. In this research laboratory for collaborative design & engineering in real-time we explore the possibilities of multidisciplinary architectural and urban design in an ICT-driven environment, including new interaction modalities for intuitive control of the entire system.

    Hyperbody is the research bureau established by Prof Kas Oosterhuis at the Faculty of Architecture at the TU Delft, as the research counterpart of his architectural practice ONL [Oosterhuis_Lénárd] in Rotterdam. Inspired by recent developments in the arts, Oosterhuis and Lénárd developed an interactive installation at the Venice Biennale in the year 2000. This project Trans_Ports formed the basis of all further research and education at Hyperbody. The word Hyperbody was coined especially for this purpose. First of all, according to Oosterhuis,we need the body as a vehicle to go places. Places in the real world, augmented by places in the virtual domain. The body becomes a Hyperbody when all building components establish an interactive relationship to each other, to the surrounding environment and to the users inside the body. The building body becomes an instrument for the users to play with, a place to negotiate, a space to perform transactions, the hyperbody is a platform for participation.

    Affiliations

    Hyperbody, as a cutting edge ICT driven research and design department, has over the years developed intricate academia and praxis based connections with some of the world’s leading professionals, institutes as well as industrial practices. Some of our prominent connections include Marcos Novak (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA), EZCT (France), Servo (USA), ONL (Netherlands), Ayssar Arida (Q-DAR Developemnt, Bert Bongers (University of Technology Sydney,), Antonino Saggio (University of La Sapienza, Rome), Neil Leach (University of Southern California), Chris Speed (Edinburgh College of Art), LABau (Belgium), Alisa Andrasek (Biothing, USA) etc.


    Hyperbody has been instrumental in conducting a variety of workshops and lectures together with our international connections specifically focused on contemporary research and design approaches ranging from the product scale to the urban scale. These workshops thus provide researchers and students alike, the cutting edge knowledge and awareness pertaining to global initiatives in the field of computational design, analysis, new media, fabrication processes and socio-cultural dynamics. Equipped with this global outlook, our students find place worldwide in some of the most esteemed architectural design practices, thus maintaining Hyperbody’s position as a critical research and education department.

    Resources & Collaborations

    Science Centre Delft
    Hyperbody and the Science Centre Delft have initiated close cooperation. Science Centre Delft is the institution that acts as an interface between the Delft University of Technology and the general public. Its mission is to open up and share cutting-edge science and research of TU Delft with people of all ages and all social backgrounds.
    In this framework Hyperbody researchers and students work directly at Science Centre Delft. Its section functions as a lab where prototypes of interactive and non-standard architectures can be fabricated, assembled and tested, while at the same time they become immediately exposed to the curious public. Visitors to Science Centre Delft can meet researchers and students at work, help them with user-testing of developed prototypes and acquire understanding of this new kind of architectural environments.


    Festo
    Festo is Europe’s leading supplier of pneumatic and automation components and systems. Festo promotes ideas and initiatives that go beyond the core business of automation and didactics, and may well give rise to promising areas of application in the future. Festo has been our research partner on the development of interactive architectures since 2003. The collaboration has resulted in the development of the Muscle projects, our first prototypes of iA, in which we tried to emphasize the real-time actuated spatial response that a building or architectural space might provide. For the Hannover Messe 2009, the world’s leading showcase for industrial technology, Hyperbody and Festo presented, an architectural-scale installation work, the InteractiveWall, with multi-sensory, real-time behaviours inspired by natural phenomena and triggered by internal and external stimuli.


    Philips
    Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is a diversified Health and Well-being company, fo-cused on improving people’s lives through timely innovations. As a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle and lighting, Philips integrates technologies and design into people-centric solutions, based on fundamental customer insights and the brand promise of “sense and simplicity”. In collaboration with ONL, Hyperbody developed iLITE, an installation commissioned by Philips, and part of the Transitions II – Light on the Move traveling exhibition, which highlights the architectural application of Philips’ lighting systems. Philips Design and Hyperbody are collaborative working to extend the knowledge in the field of data visualization and information visualization, for purposes of personal healthcare data.