smart_Shade

A non-static façade skin design plays a key role in energy performance and sustainability of the built environment considering the thermal, lighting, acoustic, and visual comfort of the occupants, as well as aesthetics, economics and durability. Smart shading systems may provide a real-time process of reconfiguration enlivening the environmental performance compared to conventional static building envelopes and enhancing the end-users’ comfort related to the changing needs and external conditions. Transformable systems may be developed for direct application on building façades, in order to provide control of natural lighting, ventilation and temperature of the inner spaces through their own surface configurations and materials, enhancing thus the end-users’ comfort.

The primary aim is to design an adaptive and kinetic shading system to be integrated into the facade of high-rise buildings thus the building’s indoor environment is not affected by the extremely sunlight conditions that occur during summer time in tropical regions and even partially in Central Europe. A nonlinear technology-driven design and analysis of adaptive and kinetic shading systems involves small scale physical models and simulations to investigate the kinetic behavior and daylight performance. Insights and inspiration could be found in smart materials and systems, aerospace, kinetic mechanisms, industry and biomimetics. The methodology exposes students to the design logic of responsive systems as related to aspects of sustainability, materiality, functionality and aesthetics on the one side and structure kinematics, morphology and daylight performance on the other side. Along these lines, students are invited to design their own adaptive and kinetic shading systems following an integrated approach of architectural developments in terms of morphology, structure and construction.