BIOMIMETHIC MOTION MECHANISM FOR RESPONSIVE ARCHITECTURE

About This Project

The study intends to investigate the possibility of developing responsive envelopes starting from the models of behavior of nature.

Nature adopts very interesting behavior patterns according to external stimuli and in relation to one’s own form. For example, the tactical, tropic and nastic movement that respond to stimuli such as humidity, sun and heat are cited.

In Architecture the possibility of developing responsive enclosures arises from the need to modulate the performance of the first filter between inside and outside with dynamic solutions that can be activated according to the people present in the environment, climatic changes or the presence of particular conditions. The possibility of modulating the performance goes in the direction of increasingly sustainable solutions capable of reducing the amount of matter and at the same time adapting to the environmental context in which they are positioned.

Studying the models of nature can develop innovative technical solutions, expanding at the same time the knowledge of the designer, thanks to the computational design techniques, which allow you to mathematically inform the design of the solutions and simulate the behavior.

An essay carried out at the ABC department of the Politecnico di Milano, ACTLAB research unit, will be illustrated in the essay, which concerns a prototype of a responsive pneumatic casing designed starting from nature models and realized with both additive and forming techniques. This wrapping system responds to the humidity stimulus by adapting its conformation thanks to the study of programmed curved hexagonal cells.