Chameleon
Developing an Interactive Facade System Using RFID

Jae Wan Park 1, Kostas Terzidis 2, Takehiko Nagakura 3
1,2 Harvard University Graduate School of Design, U.S.A, 3 Dept. of Architecture, MIT, U.S.A
1 http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/~jpark/, 2 http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/faculty/,
3 http://cat2.mit.edu/takehiko/
1 [email protected], 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected]

This paper by Jae Wan Park, Kostas Terzidis and Takehiko Nagakura, proposes an interactive façade system capable of displaying the meaningful information extracted from this interaction using RFID.

This façade system is a domain-specific, embedded system composed of three parts: an input device that employs RFID, a physical facade model that includes an output device and a microcontroller, and an application that consists of a middleware for the connection between the input and the output.

The array of meaningful information derived from the input device is displayed as aesthetically flexible patterns created by Cellular Automata algorithms through the middleware. Authors expect that this facade will contribute to enhancing the building’s identity and to revitalizing desolate modem cities as an urban screen through the communication between people and buildings.