Aimed at both challenge conventional understanding of Architecture as the production of static material assemblages, as well as to introduce the possibilities offered by the integration of digital design, manufacturing and interaction technologies, Liquid Tectonics explored the creation of soft inflatable material assemblages as new prototypes in the design of envelopes.

By developing a model of integration between soft silicone layers, digitally controlled air pressure and computationally generated geometric patterns, the students experimented with the creation of ecologies of interaction between geometry, materiality and interactive control systems.

Within such experimentations, the key issue tackled related with the replacement of static and stiffness, tectonic properties conventionally associated to architectural materials, with dynamics and softness, allowing the rethinking of historically consolidated ideas of materiality, as well as opening the ground for the continuous integration between the change possibilities offered by such material assemblage and digital control systems. Within such framework, the study of patterns geometry for the individual panels forced a shift from the design of the final form to the design of a control systems, requiring an intuitive understanding of the integrated performance of geometric and material properties.

The final results of the workshop highlight new perspectives in the understanding of the relationship between digital and material systems, as well as between geometry and material behaviour. This offers possibilities for the reconceptualization of design methodologies, pushing towards more open and dynamics formations to be explored by the interaction between designed object, environments and users.