TRANSFORM

 

INTERACTIVE ARCHITECTURE IDEAS COMPETITION

[PURPOSE] KSwick_Collection is looking for design proposals for transformable architectures that may be able to meet some of the challenges that we face as we confront overlapping crises amid unprecedented uncertainty:

HOUSING SHORTAGES & AFFORDABILITY

Zoning and other anti-development regulation, local resistance to densification (NIMBY-ism), increasing labor and material costs, dramatically reduced public investment in both public housing and private housing vouchers, natural disasters and skyrocketing insurance costs, and numerous other issues have made housing increasingly scarce and expensive.

Interactive architecture may better accommodate changing housing needs and patterns. Shared and/or flexible indoor or outdoor spaces can serve multiple functions and remain responsive to the changing needs of the community.

ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION & CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change and the over-development of areas prone to natural disaster have rendered our buildings vulnerable to catastrophe. The construction industry produces both immense greenhouse gas emissions and waste, much of which is toxic. Buildings are too often torn down instead of creatively repurposed via adaptive reuse.

Interactive architecture may be able to adapt to the rapidly changing climate with more agility and less waste. Architecture must be both more adaptive to change and resilient to weather damage and natural disaster.

DEHUMANIZATION & DEPERSONALIZATION OF DWELLINGS

The commodification of buildings has given rise to increasingly monotonous boxy apartment buildings and sprawling tract home developments. The personal process of ‘dwelling’ has been interrupted in favor of mass standardization. Occupants are thereby disincentivized from taking ownership of their spaces and caring for them.

Interactive architecture enables a more active process of ‘dwelling,’ inviting occupants and other stakeholders to take a larger role in shaping their built environments. Beyond enabling greater personalization, interactive architecture can make our cities more reflective of their inhabitants’ values and identities.

[FORMAT] We are asking for designs of dollhouse-scale architectural models that enable user interaction. We believe that durable toy-like models that can withstand manipulation by non-experts will be able to best demonstrate their interactivity.

DIMENSIONS

‘Table-top,’ roughly between 1 square foot and 1 square yard.

SCALE

U.S. Dollhouse scale, 1/12 or 1” = 1’ - 0”

MATERIALS

If possible, more renewable materials like wood and ceramics are preferred over plastics. Think in terms of assemblies that can be scaled up to 1/2 scale or full scale prototypes.

[PRIZES] Prizes will be awarded to 2 - 6 winning submissions, and entrants and winners will be displayed at the Collective Arts Incubator Design Show during LA Design Weekend September 26 - 29, 2025.

PRIZE / COMMISSION

$1,000 for the first place winner and $750 for other selected entrants, awarded upon delivery of prototype model or design drawings / digital 3d model for production.

MATERIALS BUDGET

$350 - $750 to reimburse expenses for designers making their own models. If the designer prefers, we may be able to have the prototypes fabricated by a 3rd party instead.

[FUTURE] This first iteration of this project is privately funded by KSwick_Collection, and finished exhibition models will be made available for sale to the public at the CAI Design Show. To advance this line of inquiry and invite as many people into the conversation as possible, we plan on pursuing external funding to further develop some or all of the winning entrants into the following:

TOY SETS: If the design concept or prototype is durable and scalable enough, we may seek funding for larger scale fabrication. Designers would receive compensation commensurate with standard licensing agreements from design-toy makers (like Areaware).

HALF OR FULL SCALE SECTION PROTOTYPE: Although entrants will not be judged on their real-world buildability at scale, we hope to mock up innovative systems if funding can be secured.

[TIMELINE] TRANSFORM 2025 will taking place from May through September 2025, culminating in an exhibition at the CAI Design Show for LA Design Weekend:

May 2025: Competition Announced

Early June 2025: Jury Announced

June - July 2025: Submissions Accepted

Late June 2025: LA Reception Dinner Party

Mid July 2025: SF Reception Dinner Party

August 1st, 2025: Submission Deadline

August 18th, 2025: Winners Announced

September 26 - 29, 2025: Prototype Exhibition at CAI Design Show during LA Design Weekend

[SUBMISSION FORMAT] Submissions consist of the following:

  1. Statement of design intent

  2. Representations of the design proposal, which can include:

    • Design or specification drawings

    • 3D renderings or drawings

    • Product design diagrams

    • 3D digital model (3D PDF or other)

  3. Portfolios and/or web links to work samples (not required, but preferred)

All submission materials should be compiled into a single PDF in the order listed above.

Submissions will be accepted June through July 2025.

 

REFERENCES

Interactive architecture and other associated concepts have been explored more in academic and experimental circles than in practice. It is understandably difficult to devise of buildings systems that are both resilient and reconfigurable, sturdy but also interactive.

Below are some resources describing examples of interactive architecture in theory and in practice. Many are self-organized, organically emerging within local communities confronting changes in their own cities. Fewer, perhaps, are facilitated or ‘designed.’

R-Urban Agrocite Colombes by Atelier D’Architecture Autogérée (Studio for Self-Managed

Architecture or aaa (more info: https://www.urbantactics.org/projets/agrocite/)

  • aaa acts through ‘urban tactics’, encouraging the participation of inhabitants at the self-management of disused urban spaces, overpassing contradictions and stereotypes by proposing nomad and reversible projects, initiating interstitial practices which explore the potential of contemporary city (in terms of population, mobility, temporality).

    It is by micro-political acting that we want to participate in making the city more ecological and more democratic, to make the space of proximity less dependent on top-down processes and more accessible to its users. The ‘self-managed architecture’ is an architecture of relationships, processes and agencies of persons, desires, skills and know-hows. Such an architecture does not correspond to a liberal practice but asks for new forms of association and collaboration, based on exchange and reciprocity and involving all those interested (individuals, organisations, institutions), whatever is their scale.

    Our architecture is at the same time political and poetic as it aims above all to ‘create relationships between worlds’.

[BOOKS & ARTICLES] These references are provided for inspiration, and are not “required reads.” These references are provided for inspiration, and are not “required reads:”

  1. “Alejandro Aravena: The Shape of Things to Come.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 10 Apr. 2016, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/apr/10/architect-alejandro-aravena-pritzker-prize-elemental-housing-iquique-constitucion-tsunami-defences.

  2. Aravena, Alejandro, and Michael Juul Holm. Alejandro Aravena – Elemental the Architect’s Studio. Müller, Lars, 2018.

  3. Awan, Nishat, et al. Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture. Routledge, 2011.

  4. Blundell Jones, Peter, et al. Architecture and Participation. Taylor and Francis, 2013. 

  5. Calvo, Mirian, et al. “Strategies and tactics of participatory architecture.” Proceedings of DRS, 25 June 2022, https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.458. 

  6. Frenkiel, Émilie. « For a participatory Architecture. Interview with Peter Ferretto », Books and Ideas , 21 March 2025, https://booksandideas.net/For-a-participatory-Architecture-6487.

  7. Frichot, Hélène, and Stephen Loo. Deleuze and Architecture. Edinburgh University Press, 2013. 

  8. Habraken, N. J., and Jonathan Teicher. Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing. Urban International Press, 2011. 

  9. Kossak, Florian. Agency: Working with Uncertain Architectures. Routledge, 2010. 

  10. “Legacy of Open Building.” Open Building, www.openbuilding.co/legacy?utm_medium=website&utm_source=archdaily.com.

  11. Widrich, Mechtild, and Martino Stierli. Participation in Art and Architecture: Spaces of Interaction and Occupation. I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2015. 

  12. Petrescu, Doina, and Kim Trogal. The Social (Re)Production of Architecture: Politics, Values and Actions in Contemporary Practice. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. 

  13. Petrescu, Doina and Tyszczuk, Renata, eds. Field Journal: Architecture & Indeterminacy, vol. 1, no. 1, 2007 (AVAILABLE HERE).

  14. “Spatial Agency: Database.” Spatial Agency, www.spatialagency.net/database/.

  15. Vasudevan, Alex. The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting. Verso, 2013.

[AREAS OF INQUIRY] Here are some buzzwords around interactive architecture:

  • Participatory Architecture

  • Open Architecture

  • Co-Design

  • Social Practice

  • Agency

  • Rhizomatic

  • Modularity

  • Component Design

  • Adaptive Design

  • Kinetic Architecture

  • Responsive Architecture

  • Interactive Architecture

  • Indeterminate Architecture

  • Uncertain Architectures

We are hoping to compile more resources around interactive architecture. Please feel encouraged to share your comments, questions, and recommendations.

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Icon Images from the Noun Project