• • Michael Wihart was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1975. He holds a Masters in Architectural Design from The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, where he has been running Diploma Unit 24 and is currently completing his design-led doctoral research. Besides practicing and teaching architecture, Michael has researched the architectural relevance of soft machines through theory, design and experimentation. Michael’s works and writings have been published and presented internationally in reviewed and edited literature, conferences and exhibitions. He has been based in London since 2004.

    wihart.net

  Soft Speculations

   

  Architect Michael Wihart’s research speculates on softening architecture through machines and revising architecture’s relationship with the human body. He cites key influences as Nicholas Negroponte’s groundbreaking work Soft Architecture Machines (1975), William S. Burroughs’ proto-cyborgian novel The Soft Machine (1961) and Georges Teyssot’s essay Hybrid Architecture (2005). Wihart’s most recent series of soft mechanical and silicone hybrids, driven by embedded pneumatics, derives from studies of soft organisms, such as molluscs. Departing from traditional assembly-driven mechanical conceptions, his soft machine designs draw on the “relational, embedded and embodied”, which represent for him “the idea of architecture as a partially transformable, compliant, sensitive and sensual body”, one that is conditioned by and conditions its own constituent systems, materials, morphologies and behaviours. I (sl)
  

   

  ABOUT MICHAEL WIHART

  Biomechanical Extension Shoe No.1, 1998. (Photo © Michael Wihart)

• COVER

  COVER

  Cover

  Soft Machines
• Table of contents

  Table of contents
• EDITORIAL

  EDITORIAL

  Editorial

  Soft Machines
• INTERVIEW

  INTERVIEW

  The Sincerest Form of Flattery

  Interview with biomimicry expert, Ilaria Mazzoleni

  Text: Sophie Lovell
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Elytron Pavilion

  Nature built by robots

  Text: Leigh Theodore Vlassis
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Soft Speculations

  Michael Wihart's soft machines

  Text: Sophie Lovell
• FOCUS

  FOCUS

  Paola Antonelli

  Best of Bio-design

  Text: Paola Antonelli
• ESSAY

  ESSAY

  The Bigger Picture

  Bio-cities of tomorrow

  Text: Marco Poletto, Claudia Pasquero
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Brave New Kitchen

  Microbial Home by Philips Design

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• SPECIAL

  SPECIAL

  Zumtobel Group Award 2014

  Part 3
• PHOTO ESSAY

  PHOTO ESSAY

  Bioplastic Fantastic

  Johanna Schmeer's interactive, edible products

  Text: Susie S. Lee
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Live Wires

  Philip Beesley's "living" environments

  Text: Susie S. Lee
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Mycotecture

  Mushroom materials by Ecovative Design

  Text: Susie S. Lee
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Willow Cathedral

  Gothic soft architecture updated

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• MANIFESTO

  MANIFESTO

  Manifesto for Soft Living Architecture

  Against hard inert buildings

  Text: Rachel Armstrong
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Future Venice

  Protocell protection

  Text: Rachel Armstrong
• PHOTO BOOTH

  PHOTO BOOTH

  In the Photo Booth with...

  Owen Hatherley

  Text: Rob Wilson
• KLAUSTOON

  KLAUSTOON

  Klaustoon

  XVIII. Dawn of the Planet of the Grapes

  Text: Klaus
• NEXT

  NEXT

  Next

  School's Out

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