Projects of mine like the Gathering Place and the Sky Cloud Pavilion, explore want I call the crystallization of the clustering of energy and information, in order to provide a special place in and around which to interact with the structure and with others.

The Sky Cloud Pavilion was designed to be a structure that can change the color, graphics, texture, and light opaqueness, of its surface. This can be done either manually and or automatically, by mechanically weaving flexible materials such as fabric through its support frame.  Rolls of this flexible material are mounted at the ends of the frames, and small guide cables pull the material through the frames to reveal various esthetic and or functional options. As a result of this, the structure can be completely open with only the frame exposed, and or part or all of it can be covered with a wide variety of flexible materials. This process can be controlled interactively so that the structure responds to various kinds of internal, and or external stimuli such as temperature change, wind loading and or directional changes, etc. The Sky Cloud Pavilion could also change its look as a direct result of the conscious and or subconscious needs or desires of its human occupants. As an example of this, the emotions of an individual or group of individuals who encounter the structure could be monitored by it, and the structure might change its color, graphics, etc. automatically, in order to better accommodate those feelings.

The project called A Gathering Place is a modular, changeable, re-locatable system of components that can be used in a variety of ways. In the first exploration of this system, I created a place in and around which people can gather together in order to communicate, eat, drink, relax, listen to music, and or interact with the Internet. This was meant to be an exterior pavilion, used primarily during fair weather perhaps at the next summer Olympics, and or at the next worlds fair. The structure could be any size, but in this design the rings are about twelve feet in diameter. Most of the rings form cylinders that are hinged open or closed in various ways and linked together in order to form the total space. Each cylinder can be detached from the cluster, hinged open or closed in a different way, and reattach to the cluster also in a different way. As a result, the structure can be easily changed in size and shape to accommodate changing needs. In this version the structure would be made of painted steel rings, and perforated steel sheets that form the cylinders. A small section at the center of the cluster is more fully enclosed to accommodate the needs of a concession from which food and beverages are served.