Adaptive Solar Facade

The building envelope, acting as a buffer and mediator between interior and exterior environments, is a suitable place to address issues of energy performance in architecture, as it can mitigate solar insulation, thereby offering reductions in heating/cooling loads, improve distribution of daylight and harvest solar energy. We employ novel actuators in order to research and design modules for the building envelope which allow for (a) active shading and glare reduction, (b) daylight distribution, and (c) sun tracking and energy generation.

Following the recent developments towards decentralised building systems, the envelope is conceived as a modular system, which allows these functions to be distributed and mixed across the envelope and even across a window in the most optimal way. This results in a dynamic multifunctional envelope, which increases the building’s energy performance and the occupant’s well being.

For further inforation please visit the homepage of the Chair of Architecture and Building Systems.