Thursday 20th of February we had the pleasure of hosting the Winter Lecture Series 2014 with Simon Schleicher.
In architecture, kinetic structures enable buildings to react specifically to internal and external stimuli through spatial adjustments. While these mechanical devices come in all dimensions, they are conceptualized as uniform and standardized modules. Typically, they gain their adjustability by connecting rigid elements with highly strained hinges. Even though this construction principle may be generally beneficial, it has some major drawbacks for architectural applications. Adaptation to irregular geometries, for example, can only be achieved with additional mechanical complexity, which makes these devices often very expensive, prone to failure, and maintenance-intensive.
Simon Schleicher is searching for a promising alternative to the still persisting paradigm of rigid-body mechanics and has found inspiration in flexible plant movements. By using modern computational modeling and simulation techniques, he can reveal the plants’ compliant mechanisms and integrate them into bio-inspired flexible structures. In various case studies, he demonstrates the transfer process in more detail and shows how bio-inspired mechanisms can be used, for example, to shade double curved facades.
