This isn't the 'bloggy' version of assignment 2, (to come after i rework it) but I just tried this to clarify some things, as a kind of study. I'm putting it out here for public record:

Our architecture should be more responsive and engaging. This will change how environments are perceived.

Responsive architecture is interactive.

Interaction is obtained through the manipulation of motion.

Every building has motion, but not every building has motion that creates interaction between architecture and occupant.

Examples that move and cause interaction:

Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial: She gets the visitor to engage through transcending a ramp into the earth, among other things, and them brings them back out of the earth again on another ramp. There is a literal engagement as your legs move you down and back up, and a mental engagement, as you grapple with the ideas of grief that she has imbedded in the project.

Frederick Kiesler’s Art of the Century gallery/museum: Kiesler involves the occupant by having the visitor physically work devices in order to view the art in the exhibit. If they are not being asked to do something physical to view art, they must move or approach the art in an unprecedented way (art hung on tethers, for example.) The new motions change how this space is understood.

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeannerets second Citrohan House: The way in which we move through a building can be engaging. This two story project has a very light, airy second floor, and a very dense first floor. In moving from the first to the second, the occupant undergoes a narrative or sequence. This is his ‘promenade architecturale.’ Mentally, they are interacting with their surroundings as they accumulate the short history of their travel up and into the house.

Ron Heron, Walking City: This city is meant to walk. In physically ‘walking’ over the earth, it can change the constituents of environments, and thus how people interact with these environments. It’s mobility forms new patterns of behavior, awareness and perceptions.