3D Adaptable Building Skin: Adaptive Space as a Guide through a Corridor

Abstract

This paper sets out a principle for a façade element which can be deformed in shape. By using a flexible structure with sliding steel cables, hollow pipes and cylindrical inflatable tubes, which together form a woven pattern, a 3D freedom of deformability results. The shape of the façade element can be manipulated and deformed as one desires. By studying the structure of the human skin, a structural pattern was discovered and translated into a constructive principle. The façade element can have single curved and double curved surfaces, both concave and convex. The deformations can be manipulated at will by the use of an internal cable, woven in the original pattern. Moreover the different elements in the structure are constantly in equilibrium with each other. Through this, great freedom in form is achieved. This principle will create many new possibilities in architectural design. To show the possibilities, a design for a museum, which mainly is determined in form by a corridor, is made. The corridor can adapt in volume and cross section when passengers walk through. The adapting volume can react on the number of people and the speed of walking by a sophisticated system at the supports. This way the corridor has a living expression for outside observers. In the corridor the passengers will experience their passage like walking in a bulge which guides them through the narrow corridor.