Emerging Technologies

This book, written when Walker was Visiting Professor at the Technical University Munich in 2011, describes his research on the effects of digital technology on architectural design and construction, and on the development of ‘digital craft’. The primary example given is The Swarm, a digitally designed and manufactured pavilion, produced with students while Walker was at TU Munich. It now stands outside the Bayerischen Architektenkammer (Bavarian Chamber of Architects) in Munich. Through such research-by-design, Walker asks larger questions: what can designers craft without a master craftsman’s skills, and how can craft skills be recovered through digital fabrication? Another example in the book is the Swoosh Pavilion, one of two public-space-scale architectural pavilion prototypes Walker developed between 2008 and 2009 at the Architectural Association (AA), using applied digital modelling and CNC techniques to investigate methods of teaching and testing digital processes through making. Swoosh (2008) and a second AA pavilion, Driftwood (2009), were discussed by Walker and Martin Self, his co-investigator, in ‘Fractal, bad hair, Swoosh and Driftwood pavilions of Intermediate Unit 2, 2006–2009’, published in the AD reader, Manufacturing the Bespoke (2012), which includes essays by well-known critics and designers such as Mathias Kohler and Michael Stacey. Both AA pavilions were sponsored by FinnForest Merk, Arup, HOK and Building Design Magazine, and were seen by large international audiences in Bedford Square, London during the 2008–9 ‘AA Projects Review’ shows. The book Making Pavilions (Walker and Self, AA Agenda No. 9, Architectural Association Press, 2011) also discusses their work over seven years of teaching at the Architectural Association. At the same time, Walker collaborated on a series of Serpentine pavilions, commissioned annually by the Serpentine Gallery, London, co-designing these experimental structures with internationally renowned architects Daniel Libeskind, Oscar Niemeyer, Toyo Ito and Alvaro Siza.

Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience

This co-edited book focuses on core theories and research on technologies, from the first audio guides to contemporary and future mobile digital devices, which inform practical design considerations. It is framed in case studies and focuses generally on informal learning by museum and gallery visitors. The book fills a significant gap in the literature on museum practice with regard to uses of digital technologies, which are not generally grounded in rigorous research, and is intended to retain its relevance as technologies evolve and emerge. The book includes chapters by invited authors from the USA, UK and Europe who contribute expertise in a number of areas of museum research and practice. The research resulted in invited keynote speeches in France (‘Technologie de l’apprentissage humain dans les musées’ seminar at Laboratoire d’Informatique de Grenoble on 5 March 2009), Iceland (keynote at ‘NODEM Network of Design and Digital Heritage’ conference on 3 December 2008) and London (Keynote at ‘Mobile Learning Conference’ on 26 January 2009). The book was given the highest recommendation ('Essential') by the American Library Association, and was reviewed in MedieKultur (2011, 50, 185–92). Walker’s chapter includes some of the initial findings from his PhD research on visitor-constructed trails in museums, which shifts focus from the design of technologies to the design of activities intended to structure the use of technologies, and constitutes some of the first published research on visitor-generated trails using mobile technologies. Structures such as trails are shown to act as effective mental models for museum visitors, especially structures with a narrow subject focus and manageable amount of data capture; those created as a narrative or a conversation; and those that emphasise construction, rather than data capture. Walker also selected most of the other chapter authors, suggested their topics and led the editing of the publication.