Living Wall is an interactive wallpaper.

Detailed Description:
This project experiments with interactive wallpaper that can be programmed to monitor its environment, control lighting and sound, and generally serve as a beautiful and unobtrusive way to enrich environments with computation.

Known drawbacks of design:
-

Website:
http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=27

Designed in:
2010

Status of realization:
Prototype

Challenge(s):
energy, graphic design, housing, science, technology, urbanism

Form
The Living Wall is a culmination of several projects and developments along the line of sensor-embedded paper and textiles. It is an interactive wallpaper that can be programmed to monitor its environment and control lighting and sound. By running your hand across the wallpaper—which is constructed out of paper, paint and arduino sensors, then hooked up to a paper computing kit—you can turn on a lamp, play music, or send a message to a friend. The wallpaper is flat, constructed entirely from paper and paint and can be paired with a paper computing kit whose pieces serve as sensors, lamps, network interfaces, and interactive decorations.

Impact
When combined with cheap temperature, brightness and touch sensors, LEDs and Bluetooth, the wall becomes a control surface able to "talk" to nearby devices. You can touch a flower to turn on a lamp, for example, or set heaters to fire up when the room gets cold. The wallpaper shows how existing technology can be used in innovative ways with materials and applications normally thought of as "low tech". Projects like this will encourage artists to engage more with technology.

Context
The goal is creating electronically enhanced wallpaper that will be able to turn on and control devices. To make technologies that users can build on and change without needing a lot of technical skill. It really is just a sheet of paper, and could be produced with existing printing and construction methods.

Other relevant information
To create the wallpaper, the team started with steel foil sandwiched between layers of paper that are coated with magnetic paint – acrylic paint infused with iron particles. Over this base they paint motifs such as flowers and vines using conductive paint, which uses copper particles rather than iron. The designs form circuits to which sensors, lights and other elements can be attached.

Is the design protected by patent or ip registration?
creative commons

How has the development of the design been financed hereunto?
Company development costs

Is there a plan for future investments?
Not known

Is there in-house competencies to secure market roll out of the design, with regards to investment, distribution, sales, etc.?
Not known

Designed by:
Leah Bluechley

Title/Role:
Director, High-Low Tech Group

Website:
http://web.media.mit.edu/~leah/

Professional status of designer:
Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences

Nationality:
United States of America

City/Country of residence:
Cambridge, MA

Name of company:
High-Low Tech Group, MIT

Designed by:
David Mellis

Title/Role:
Research Assistant,High-Low Tech Group

Website:
http://web.media.mit.edu/~mellis/

Professional status of designer:
Graduate Student of Media Arts and Sciences

Nationality:
United States of America

City/Country of residence:
Cambridge, MA

Name of company:
High-Low Tech Group, MIT

Designed by:
Emily Lovell

Title/Role:
Research Assistant, High-Low Tech Group

Website:
http://web.media.mit.edu/~emme/

Professional status of designer:
Graduate Student of Media Arts and Sciences

Nationality:
United States of America

City/Country of residence:
Cambridge, MA

Name of company:
High-Low Tech Group, MIT

Designed by:
Hannah Perner-Wilson

Title/Role:
Research Assistant, High-Low Tech Group

Website:
http://www.plusea.at/

Professional status of designer:
Graduate Student of Media Arts and Sciences

Nationality:


City/Country of residence:
Cambridge, MA

Name of company:
High-Low Tech Group, MIT

Designed by:
Edward Baati

Title/Role:
Research Assistant, High-Low Tech Group

Professional status of designer:
Graduate Student of Media Arts and Sciences

Nationality:
United States of America

City/Country of residence:
Cambridge, MA

Name of company:
High-Low Tech Group, MIT

Designed by:
Jie Qi

Title/Role:
Research Assistant, High-Low Tech Group

Website:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jq2152/

Professional status of designer:
Graduate Student of Media Arts and Sciences

Nationality:
China

City/Country of residence:
Cambridge, MA / United States of America

Name of company:
High-Low Tech Group, MIT


Manufactured/Produced/Commisioned by:
MIT Media Lab
http://www.media.mit.edu/

Additional credits:
UROPs