What every door should know about itself

What every door should know about itself

Doors have a fascinating duality. Open they become space, part of the 'voids' of architecture: a hole that connects two spaces. Closed they are 'solids': building elements that separate the two spaces. Their interactionwieh humans can be complex, allowing first of all change between the two states of open and closed, as well as recognisable variation in between: ajar, half open, half closed - many recognisable states, often with specific maning.

This duality and interaction makes doors critical for the behaviour and performance of a building. It also makes them prime candidates for intelligent behaviour of the kind that delights me: local, practical, modest. Such intelligence can be observed both n real life, with automatically opening doors and similarly smart recognition of the user, and in design representations, with doors sticking to their walls or otherwise becoming attuned to their context.

What delights me above all is that such intelligence, certainly in a design representation, can be made possible by collecting all constraints on a door and using them to determine the behaviour of the door symbol. It's an interesting perspective: when the door knows enough about itself, it can become intelligent.