- see abstracts below - _______________________________________________________________________________________
Recent Adaptive Textile Façade Systems
Lucio Blandini • Moon-Young Jeong • Michael Voigt • Hannah Schürmann • Arina Cazan • Hannah Raisch • Daniel Roth • Maria Matheou
Adaptive facade systems are a promising approach to achieve a dynamic response to varying weather conditions and user demands. The interdisciplinary Cooperative Research Centre 1244 “Adaptive Skins and Structures for the Built Environment of Tomorrow” at the University of Stuttgart explores the technical and architectural potential of such adaptive systems. The CRC’s overarching objective is to reduce the consumption of natural resources, the generation of waste, and the emission of greenhouse gases, while increasing user comfort. The parameters targeted for the design of adaptive façades therefore include among others solar radiation, daylighting, temperature control, and user interaction.
D1244, a 36.5 m high adaptive tower, serves as an experimental platform for the research work performed in the framework of CRC 1244: 24 hydraulic actuators are integrated into the tower’s steel structure. Thus, D1244 can react actively to external loads such as strong winds or earthquakes. The facade of the tower was initially made of a temporary single-layer recycled membrane. This temporary skin is now replaced floor by floor with different adaptive façade systems developed by the research team. In 2023 the focus lay on the façades on the first two floors: light adaptive textile systems and user interaction are the main themes of the first (ground) floor, whereas the second-floor kinetic skin deals with daylighting and shading technologies.
At the ground floor researchers installed a parametrically designed veil-like screen (FiberSKIN), which protects from weathering and regulates light transmission. The two panels at the front side are made of fully recyclable glass and basalt fibers and can be completely opened through a double-sliding mechanism. At the back side of the ground floor an interactive façade system responds dynamically to human touch (MagneticSKIN). Featuring an interaction layer both inside and outside, the façade makes use of electromagnetic actuators to generate a pulse-like sensation when it is activated, thus engaging in haptic interaction with the users. On the second floor, a textile kinetic shading solution for controlling daylighting and reducing heat island effect (KineticSKIN) is currently under construction.
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Patrick Delorey
Abstract:
Finishing of custom-fabricated architectural façade components represents one of the most significant components to their cost. Manually driven methods incur high labor hours of monotonous sanding and challenging ergonomic conditions for laborers while existing automation solutions typically require repetitive and/or simplistic component geometry consequently shrinking the design solution space and the number of allowable unique parts. These solutions are either economically prohibitive as a manufacturing proposition or are out of step with contemporary forms of architectural aesthetic expression and sacrifice design intent. New digital workflows, reality-capture tools, and fabrication strategies via industrial robotics offer significant opportunities to achieve both manufacturing scalability and sustainability without compromising the desired free-form architectural effects.
We propose here a reframing of the CAD model → Toolpath → Program pipeline typical to most contemporary CNC-reliant manufacturing. We choose instead to explore a more agile and flexible model with the insertion of 3D scanning into the workflow - one thereby capable of absorbing and accommodating many of the uncertainties and imperfections in a fast-paced production environment while still delivering the fidelity to manufacturing tolerances achievable with computer controlled machine tools.
This paper will explore the development and deployment of robotic sanding, honing, and cutting processes in the context of an architectural cladding product combining novel composite materials and extremes in both part scale & geometric variation with advanced digital technologies including laser scanning, surface model reconstruction, and rapid programming for industrial automation machine tools.
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Julia Koerner-Al-Rawi
Wearables protect us from climatic conditions, they provide privacy, comfort and they also reflect our style and personality. Building facades in the same way, provide protection from the weather, comfort, privacy and showcase typology and style. The link between architecture and fashion is a perceptible phenomenon in both theory and practice through many contemporary pioneers including Frank Lloyd Wright, Adolf Loos, Coco Chanel and Joseph Hoffmann. Designing the architectural surface was frequently understood as being like designing a garment. The foundation of this connection between textiles or dresses and architecture had been laid in the mid-19th century by architect Gottfried Semper’s “Principle of Dressing”.
This research investigates the relationship of fashion and building skins and demonstrates how buildings of the future can have skins that are fit and performative and are 3D-printed with innovative sustainable materials. Across the world, temperature extremities are rising into previously unimagined realms, and our seasons are disrupted by record setting heat. Extreme heat affects health and wellbeing, and it affects how we occupy and use buildings. Ground-up construction will diminish in urban environments and increasingly be replaced with retrofits. Within this research the design of retrofits of existing buildings is being rethought, providing new wearable skins “Jackets for buildings”, which respond to extreme climatic conditions.
By addressing specific contemporary concerns in architectural facade design, the research method utilizes natural living systems as inspiration to develop new, creative and critical design techniques inspired by biomimicry. Aesthetically appealing catalogs of computational designs and 3D printed prototypes, made of biodegradable plastic, resin and binder jetting technologies demonstrate visually rich case studies for innovative and sustainable facade designs. The research provides opportunities to expand positions in architecture by rethinking existing problems, establishing new directions, and making well-informed and progressive conjectures that shape the built environment.
Limited publications about this topic exist in architecture literature since the topic is cutting edge and novel, situated in speculative design research for relevant future scenarios. Key audience are architecture educators, students, and industry leaders in facade design, technology and 3D printing building industries.
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