PHOTOTROPISM OF TENSILE FACADE SYSTEM THROUGH MATERIAL AGENCY

This paper researches material agencies, mechanical systems and facade designs that are able to respond to environmental changes through local interactions, inspired by biological systems. These are based on a model of distributed intelligence founded on plants and animal collectives, from which intelligent behavior emerges through simple local associations. Biological collective systems integrate material form and responsiveness and have the potential to inform new architectural and engineering strategies. The design approach of this research is based on a data-driven methodology spanning from design inception to simulation and physical modeling. Data-driven models, common in the fields of natural science, offer a method to generate and test a multiplicity of responsive solutions. The driving concepts are three types of evolutionary adaptation: flexibility, acclimation, and learning. The proposed facade system is a responsive textile shading structure which uses integrated actuators that moderate their local environments through simple interactions with their immediate neighbors. Computational techniques coupled to material logics create an integral design framework leading to heterogeneous environmental and structural conditions, producing local responses to environmental stimuli and ultimately effective performance of the whole system.