Arch-OS: An operating system for buildings

Abstract

A review of the literature on Intelligent Buildings suggests an ideal of a building as an autonomous system that controls its internal and external environments. The model, whose origin lies with early models of artificial intelligence, effectively treats the building as a slave to human needs, and appears to vest more intelligence in the building than its occupants. This paper proposes that automated environments be understood as extensions of human sense and awareness. It describes an operating system, Arch-OS, that exemplifies this approach by increasing building occupant’s consciousness of their environment. While changeable, program-driven buildings have occupied architecture since the late 19 th century, the concept of Intelligent Buildings (IB) is comparatively new. In this paper we explore the use of this term in architecture since the late 1960’s, and introduce a new concept in computer augmented environments, Arch-OS. Our examination of Intelligent Building (IB) literature discloses underlying values and priorities of its proponents. We argue that these values, particularly those found in the building industry, conform to a materialist view of architectural practice and so objectifies the occupants of architecture as mechanically sustained bodies. Industrial literature proposes an autonomic ideal, the building’s intelligence , characterized by the homeostatic closure of systems in service to its users. We ask whether the building-as-slave model is appropriate – or even sufficient – to address a more sophisticated model of the user. Here we suggest instead that computation and computer augmented environments are psychosomatic extensions of their user/occupants, and that an ecological model of the user/environment relationship yields fruitful results. Countering the materialist view, this model embraces the cognitive role of the user rather than that of the building, and thereby inverts the priorities set by architectural and industrial discourse on IB. In order to demonstrate the potential of this model we will describe the installation of a computer-augmented environment at The University of Plymouth in England. The system supporting this environment, Arch-OS, was developed to serve both building systems and – more importantly –