Wood is a prototypical biological material, which adapts to mechanical requirements. The microarchitecture of cellulose fibrils determines the mechanical properties of woody materials, as well as their actuation properties, based on absorption and desorption of water. Herein it is argued that cellulose fiber orientation corresponds to an analog code that determines the response of wood to humidity as an active material. Examples for the harvesting of wood activity, as well as bioinspiration, are given.
The article attempts to portray architecture as a spatial medium and to analyse the processing and storage of information, objects and persons. In doing so, architectural space becomes not only the effect of these medial operations, but it also forms and materializes these processes at the same time. Openings are characterized as fundamental elements of architectural media. Also, in this regard, such classic elements as doors and windows in the sense of a room perceived as a perforated membrane, acquire a new medial quality.
It is only recently, with the increasing interest in origami and folding in natural sciences and the humanities, that the fold as a new conception in a whole range of disciplines has begun to be conceived in a broader way. Folding as a material and structural process offers a new methodology to think about the close relationship of matter, form and code. It henceforth crosses out old dichotomies, such as the organic and the inorganic or nature and technology, and blurs the boundaries between experimental, conceptual and historical approaches. This anthology aims to unfold this new interdisciplinary field and its disciplinary impact, ranging from materials science, biology, architecture, and mathematics to literature and philosophy.
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