- Passive Shading Skin | Photochromic System
This Design/Research endeavor undertaken at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalunya for the Academic year 2013/14, presents an exploration of potential Architectural applications of Color Changing Materials, namely Photochromic Powders. The project speculates optimal design solutions for building skins, along with an efficient use of smart materials while incorporating high-end fabrication techniques and digital tools necessary for the simulation of the anticipated material behavior under changing environmental conditions.
This project understands material intelligence as a cooperative agent in the Architectural design, making possible the spontaneous response of a built construction to a spectrum of stimuli, while contributing to a dynamic, visually engaging and communicative quality of building skins.
Terms like “interactive” and “transformative” are already well established within the Architectural jargon. Nonetheless, this design proposal suggests dynamism through the use of inherent material property to shift state in response to changing energy fields. This main property of smart materials opens doors to the design of passive systems, the ultimate ambition in mainstream practice, which we, in turn, attempt to achieve in this research.
Through Material Testing, we deduce that the application of Photochromics in Architecture is best suited for Passive Shading/ Light and Heat regulating glazing. We propose a versatile system that derives its intelligence from:
1. Photochromics- as Intelligent Material;
2. A Parametric Design Tool adapting building skins to better optimized forms and material allocation, in response to local environmental conditions at every point along the surface.
