Environmental regulation with smart materials for architecture.

In architecture, the building skin is the primary interface for mediating the environment of the external with the internal. But today, this mediation is mechanical, deterministic, and static—often seeing the human as a generalizable and problematic input. With advances in material science however, there is great potential to disrupt these traditional manufactured environments of architecture and turn them into responsive mediated environments. What this thesis aimed to explore was the idea of the receptive skin—a sensate and dynamic multi-material interface for environmental mediation.

In collaboration with advisors Kent Larson, Hiroshi Ishii and Neri Oxman from the MIT Media Lab.

Buildings that sense and breathe

This work investigated intersections of architecture, design, phenomenology and materiality and encompass a broad cross-section of literature in order to synthesize the elements and craft a new type of relationship between people, space, and the built environment. The work looked at the potential for active materials and their use in architecture to mediate environments. By departing from the view that buildings are static artifacts, we may instead begin to see buildings as organic, living entities.

Dynamic material composites

The final prototype is a “proof of concept,” a built example of this novel design methodology, which unites material performance with sensate technologies, as a way to enable new interactions between building and environment.

New material kinematics

The project explore the potential for active materials and their use in architecture to mediate environments and resulted in a design language of bio-pneumatic forms. Through the development of a working prototype, this investigation explored how such an interface may manifest itself, through dynamic material composites, instead of mechanical and electronic means.