Breathing new life into the yoga experience

A unique new architectural environment for people who practice yoga and meditation is planning to take this ancient discipline into the digital era.   ‘ExoBuilding’ is a piece of adaptive architecture which has been designed and built by a team of scientists and architects at The University of Nottingham. The project has been pioneered by the University’s Mixed Reality Lab, which creates interactive technologies to enhance everyday life and is partially supported by the EPSRC Orchid project and the Horizon Digital Economy Hub.   ‘ExoBuilding’ is a tent-like structure that changes its height, volume and shape according to its inhabitant’s real-time physiological data. Occupants are wired up to heart and breathing monitors and the structure is driven by servomotors that receive and translate the signals through a platform called the Equator Component Toolkit, also designed at Nottingham.