2020 ARCC Research Incentive Award

The ARCC Research Incentive Award aims to support and promote high‐quality architectural research and scholarship activities in ARCC member schools. The program provides faculty in with a one-year $5,000 grant to support and enhance their research and creative activities, and to develop their research agendas.

Reconfigurable Space: Kinematic Environments Controlled with Computer Vision

Principal Investigator: Rachel Dickey, M.Des.; Co-Investigators: Ali Karduni, M.Arch./M.S. in Information Technology and Noushin Radnia, M.Arch./M.S. in Information Technology (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)

The project will explore a robotic architecture produced from large-scale deployable surfaces which can change size in shape based on human activity. The research focuses on the first of the three related projects: 1) physical design and prototyping of kinematic architectural elements; 2) design and testing of computer vision sensing and control systems for actuated elements; 3) user testing studying the impact of reconfigurable environments on occupants. The outcome of this first phase of work includes a research exhibition demonstrating pneumatically actuated soft robotics.

Rachel Dickey, M.Des. is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and is founder of Studio Dickey, an experimental design practice based in Charlotte. She holds a Master of Design Studies with a concentration in technology from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Master of Architecture from Georgia Tech. Dickey has held appointments as a visiting critic at Cornell University and Design Innovation Fellow at Ball State University. Her research and work has been published in Architectural Review, Arteca, Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art, and Design, and Paradigms in Computing. Additionally, she has exhibited at the Office for the Arts at Harvard, Des Cours in New Orleans, and the Museum of Design in Atlanta. Dickey’s particular area of interest examines ways of engaging the body and technology to uncover design approaches which demonstrate the influential capacity of architecture to impact and enhance the lives of those who encounter it.

Ali Karduni, M.Arch./M.S. is a Ph.D. Candidate in Computing and Information Systems at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. A computer scientist and designer, Karduni works as a researcher at the Charlotte Visualization Center and instructor in the School of Architecture. His research involves understanding how information technologies affect spatial and social processes, and developing new interactive technologies to alter and impact these processes. His interdisciplinary work has been published in academic journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings spanning the disciplines of Computer Science, Urbanism, and Architecture. He holds a Master of Architecture and Master of Science in Information Technology from UNCC and a Master of Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Noushin Radnia, M.Arch./M.S. is a Post-Graduate Teaching Fellow in the School of Architecture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She has worked as a designer, researcher, and educator in Iran and the United States. She holds a Master of Architecture and Master of Science in Information Technology from UNCC and a Bachelor of Architecture from Azad University of Tabriz, Iran. Radnia has pursued her research in the Digital Arts Lab at UNCC at the intersection of architecture and technology, centered around the dialogue between physical and digital space and how they impact human experience.