An Adaptive Building Skin Concept Resulting from a New Bioinspiration Process: Design, Prototyping, and Characterization

Abstract

Building envelopes can manage light, heat gains or losses, and ventilation and, as such, play a key role in the overall building performance. Research has been focusing on increasing their efficiency by proposing dynamic and adaptive systems, meaning that they evolve to best meet the internal and external varying conditions. Living organisms are relevant examples of adaptability as they have evolved, facing extreme conditions while maintaining stable internal conditions for survival. From a framework based on the inspiration of living envelopes such as animal constructions or biological skins, the concept of an adaptive envelope inspired by the Morpho butterfly was proposed. The system can manage heat, air, and light transfers going through the building and includes adaptive elements with absorption coefficients varying with temperature. This paper presents the developed framework that led to the final concept as well as the concept implementation and assessment. A prototype for heat and light management was built and integrated into a test bench. Measurements were performed to provide a first assessment of the system. In parallel, geometrical parametric models were created to compare multiple configurations in regards to indicators such as air, light, or heat transfers. One of the models provided light projections on the system that were compared with measurements and validated as suitable inputs in grey-box models for the system characterization.