Abstract

Architectural adaptation, as an integral concept, involves all the actors, buildings and elements (technical, organic, material, social) of an inhabited site and allows for adaptive actions within a common development process in the face of the current crisis. In order to explore this, we re-actualize an integral notion of "Environments" introduced by artists and architects in the 1960s as open settings that challenge the boundaries and relationships between designers and visitors, art and life. Adaptation processes in architectural "Environments" evolve on social, spatial and design levels and are based on reciprocity, inclusive communication and continuous negotiation between all actors. In this way, they can be understood as a medium between different needs and conditions, or as agents of mediation and negotiation for situational adaptation states. The development of an adaptive high-rise in Stuttgart shows that adaptive structures, due to their ability to react dynamically, have special media qualities that are important for negotiation processes with all actors in architectural 'Environments.' Each new form or state reflects and informs changing situations and relationships between actors and enables communication and interaction processes within Environments. Using pre-modern examples, we discuss how earlier 'Environments' formed a medium for and with (non-human and human) inhabitants, their practices, knowledge and history, and their surroundings over long periods of time. Historical research on communication processes in and with architecture shows how an exchange between all actors of 'Environments' can function in the future, for collaborative adaptation processes, for design interaction with human, plant and animal actors, and of natural processes and social practices. Based on concepts from media theory as well as design and empirical findings, we have developed designs with multiple media qualities in which different actors can be involved in a joint development process, e.g. with materials that allow for further processing and spatial structures that allow for remodeling. Architecture is a medium that allows for the creation of new forms, and adaptive buildings allow for multiple spatial states in dynamic adaptation processes.