Nexus 20/21, Relationships Between Architecture and Mathematics.

This letter from the editors commences by reporting on Nexus 20/21, the 13th international, interdisciplinary conference for architecture and mathematics. This event took place in July 2021 as an online conference. From over 50 presentations at the conference, the Scientific Committee nominated a series of works for potential inclusion in two special issues of the Nexus Network Journal. This letter introduces eleven papers selected for Vol. 24(2), with the remainder to appear in Vol. 24(3).

Characterizing Smart Environments as Interactive and Collective Platforms: A Review of the Key Behaviors of Responsive Architecture.

Since architect Nicholas Negroponte first proposed a vision of responsive architecture smart environments have been widely investigated, especially in the fields of computer science and engineering. Despite growing interest in the topic, a comprehensive review of research about smart environments from the architectural perspective is largely missing. In order to provide a formal understanding of smart environments in architecture, this paper conducts a systematic literature review of scholarly sources over the last decade, focusing on four related subjects: (1) responsive architecture, (2) kinetic architecture, (3) adaptive architecture and (4) intelligent buildings. Through this review, the paper identifies and examines interactive and collective behaviors in smart environments, thereby contributing to defining the properties of creative, smart spaces in the contemporary digital ecosystem. In addition, this research offers a means of systematically characterizing and constructing smart environments as interactive and collective platforms, enabling occupants to sense, experience and understand smart spaces.

The impacts of digital design platforms on design cognition during remote collaboration: A systematic review of protocol studies.

For over a decade, technology has been available to support design teams to operate in diverse physical locations and time zones. Despite this, until relatively recently designers have largely continued to work in physically co-located teams. This has all, however, changed in the last year, with designers in many countries being forced to work remotely. The problem addressed in this article is the lack of synthesised knowledge about the impacts of digital modalities on designers' cognitive operations when they are working in distributed teams. With an emphasis on synthesis of existing knowledge, this article conducts a systematic review of research in accordance with the PRISMA framework. The systematic review identifies ten studies that have a common concern (design cognition), a common method (protocol analysis) and a common setting (collaborative yet remote interactions). This article analyses the past research, developing a collective model of cognitive operations in remote design collaboration and synthesising the findings about the impacts of technology (the platforms supporting remote collaboration) on cognition. Through this process multiple gaps in the body of knowledge are also identified, several weaknesses are uncovered and advice for future researchers is developed.