As part of the graduation project, a contemporary form of direct sensory experience was sought, and the possibilities for extending its properties by using IT. In this context, an interface was defined between increasingly complex and comprehensive computeraided design tools and the level of direct playful and experimental construction. Thus, the HOOK* design enables media competence and an understanding of abstract linkages via a personal experience with objects in the real world. Here, the work quotes, among others, from the thought of philosopher and psychologist Jean Piaget, who studied the generation of logical structures in children’s minds by watching their playful and explorative relationship to their surroundings. Thus, the child by playing acquires experiential knowledge that often can neither be couched in words nor accessed through abstract formal or logical sentences. For example, if a dam breaks that was built to stem a river across its entire breadth, before even a third of it has filled with water or a treehouse breaks under the load of an inhabitant, then we learn from attentive observation without knowing the physical laws in question. Instead, knowledge is generated from experience that, according to Piaget, forms the basis for logical abstract understanding.
To this end, the concept of a »communicating structure« was devised that visualizes the forces at work in it, and by way of example is applied to the topic of load bearing. In the form of HOOK the system has been established as functional prototype and possible types of interaction evaluated. It is thus possible, to experience static and dynamic loads, to record them and then subject them to differentiated analysis. The size was chosen such that active testing of the structure, i.e., by stepping on it, is possible. Key elements: nodal points that represent the tensile forces and pressure at work and act as structural frame elements. The concept as applied is intended for workshops and project work in schools, museums, and educational institutions, where the topic of load bearing can be experienced playfully in groups. Depending on the prior knowledge and interest of the young people, they can explore load bearing properties at different levels of complexity. Through direct interaction building, where jointly edifices can be created by simple means, the impact of loadbearing forces can be experienced directly. To be more precise: by using nodal points that enable a differentiated presentation and investigation of tensile forces and pressure within the construction. These have been translated into color codes and are emitted by RGB light diodes. Of central importance: the possibility to use different building materials and thus explore their loadbearing properties in the context of the structure. The nodal points digitally record the forces at work, thus defining an interface of the real spatial structure and its computersupported advanced evaluation. Thus an interface arises between sensory tactile experience and abstract IT tools.
In future, the system will be expanded starting with the basic concept realized, to include alongside tensile force and pressure also expansion and torsion, and to open these to experience in different structural elements (e.g., structures bearing the load of surfaces, stiffeners or stressed elements). As part of this expansion, a set of modules will then arise which enable construction on a smaller scale and thus the creation of complex structures. Thus, alongside the possibility of making acrostructures such as bridges, towers, or edifices bearing the load of surfaces, a differentiated gaze at the materials and their microstructures should be offered. Analogously to biomechanical studies, by means of more handy modules it will be possible to mirror loadbearing principles such as can be found on a sheet in an enlarged form and then explore them. Thus, the field of lightweight structures and adaptive architecture will both be accessible to study. Precisely in the case of the complex functional dependencies encountered there, the concept of visualizing forces and interdependencies in the edifice will offer an intuitive approach to how they function. Expanded by the possibility of digital recording, children’s and young people’s experimental and playful building is taken to open up experiences with objects in the real world by means of advanced digital evaluation and construction tools.
*Named after Sir Robert Hooke (1635-1703), an Englisch mathematician and physicist, who in 1678 established Hooke’s Law, one of the fundamental laws of load-bearing structures.