Kinetic Facades

Tags: Architectural Design

Beginner's guide to climate responsive facades and design process

Last updated 2022-01-10 | 3.4

- Identify types of kinetic facades
- Recognize climate responsive elements
- Understand integration in design

What you'll learn

Identify types of kinetic facades

Recognize climate responsive elements

Understand integration in design

Know-how of examples

* Requirements

* This course is about dynamic facades on buildings.
* This is a beginner level course. There are no prerequisites.

Description

For a long period of time, architecture had been considered ‘static’ for most purposes. However, starting from basic individual ‘moving elements’ like doors, windows, elevators, etc., technology has helped architects to design buildings that move as a whole or a part. Kinetic elements have more commonly found expression as media and interactive facades. This course covers many interesting examples of facades.

Further, integration of kinetics into the façade inorder to modulate daylight, shading and/or ventilation have taken the climate responsive design to the next level. Not only such buildings are interactive, they serve specific functions to enhance occupant comfort with reduced energy use. This course will enumerate interesting projects having climate responsive facades.

The dynamic nature of such facades requires that the design process to be iterative assessing numerous design and functional parameters to arrive at a optimized solutions. An example of such a performative design process using a suite of simulation tools is discussed in the last module of the course.

The course is structured in 6 modules with two instructors and a moderator. This content is highly visual and engaging. At the end of the course, you can confidently identify what kinetic facades are and the iterative design process that is required to design such facades.

Who this course is for:

If you are fascinated about moving elements on a buildings, you are interested in understanding dynamic facades
Even if you are not familiar with building design or architecture, but you are just curious to known about kinetic facades, then this course is for you !

Course content

1 sections • 7 lectures

Kinetic Facades 7 lectures

Introduction Preview 03:29

You will understand how the course is organized so you can plan on completing the course accordingly.

Module 1: Introduction to kinetic facades Preview 03:38

Module 1 will introduce you to what kinetic facades are all about and how to define it.

Module 2: History and evolution Preview 02:35

Although kinetic facades is a contemporary design approach, it has evolved from simple systems. This lecture will give a brief history and background of kinetic architecture as a whole.

Module 3: Integration in built form Preview 06:04

kinetic systems when integrated in built form take on a different meaning. It becomes user controlled and interactive and respond to many possibilities. This lecture elaborates on the integrated of kinetics in buildings with interesting examples.

Module 4: Responsive Facades Preview 06:39

Kinetic systems designed specifically to respond to climate parameters such as daylight, shading and ventilation go beyond just being interactive. Such facades are functional aimed to provide occupant thermal comfort using less energy. This lecture will elaborate on climate responsive dynamic facades through many real world examples.

Module 5: Project Showcase Preview 11:19

The design of dynamic facades calls for an iterative design process that also uses many computational tools. This process is explained in this lecture with the help of a real project example.