ABSTRACT
A building skin can become an extension of its inhabitants. Like actual skin, it surrounds their environment, communicating with external and internal variables. It is the building skin which can allow for greatest flexibility and ubiquity. Skin invisible through interaction, evidenced by the distance reached by the sound or light of a space. An adaptable skin blurs boundaries because it combines various sensory stimuli. Interactive surface skins may be opaque or semi-transparent, integrating the physical with the virtual. Such surfaces can be layered to create augmented realities that become powerful design tools when trying to influence occupant behavior. Such an augmented reality can take the form of an immersive environment where "space is no longer fixed in either location or dimension". Designers can use elements of change to create responses for architectural interactions with occupants. Adaptive architecture provides environments for prevention.
