Solutions from nature for building envelope thermoregulation

Abstract

The building envelope has to maintain a thermal comfort for the occupants. Current technologies for buildings consider the envelope as a thermal barrier or a shield that has to be insulated to prevent heat loss and allow it to be open to dissipate heat if necessary. More efficient thermoregulation solutions can be found in nature. Organisms can manipulate their body temperature by behavioural or physiological means as an adaptive response to the environmental changes. In this paper we present performance taxonomy of organisms that facilitate thermoregulation in nature, and we discuss their possible application in building envelopes. Moreover, we present an application case of such taxonomy for an evaporative cooling system for building envelopes. © 2010 WIT Press.