Using Tensegrity and Folding to Generate Soft Responsive Architectural Skins

Responsive Architectural Skins

This paper by Sherif Abdelmohsen, Passaint Massoud and Ahmed Elshafei describes the process of designing a prototype for a soft responsive system for a kinetic building facade.

Table of Contents

Using Tensegrity and Folding to Generate Soft Responsive
Architectural Skins

Sherif Abdelmohsen 1, Passaint Massoud 2, Ahmed Elshafei 3
1 The American University in Cairo
2, 3 The American University in Cairo, Ain Shams University
1,2,3 {sherifmorad|drpassaint|a.elshafei}@aucegypt.edu

This paper by Sherif Abdelmohsen, Passaint Massoud and Ahmed Elshafei describes the process of designing a prototype for a soft responsive system for a kinetic building facade.

The prototype uses lightweight materials and mechanisms to generate a building facade skin that is both soft (less dependent on hard mechanical systems) and responsive (dynamically and simultaneously adapting to spatial and environmental conditions).

By combining concepts stemming from both tensegrity structures and folding mechanisms, authors develop a prototype that changes dynamically to produce varying facade patterns and perforations based on sensor-network data and feedback. They use radiation sensors and shape memory alloys to control the prototype mechanism and allow for the required parametric adaptation.

Based on the data from the radiation sensors, the lengths of the shape memory alloys are altered using electric wires and are parametrically linked to the input data. The transformation in the resulting overall surface is directly linked to the desired levels of daylighting and solar exposure. Authors conclude with directions for future research, including full scale testing, advanced simulation, and multi-objective optimization.

Leave a Reply

Related Post

The Airshell Prototype

This paper by Alessandro Liuti, Sofia Colabella, and Alberto Pugnale, presents the construction of Airshell, a small timber gridshell prototype erected by employing a pneumatic formwork.

Read More »

Strained Grid Shells

In this paper by Gregory Charles Quinn, Chris J K Williams, and Christoph Gengnagel, a detailed comparison is carried out between established as well as novel erection methods for strained grid shells by means of FE simulations and a 3D-scanned scaled physical model in order to evaluate key performance criteria such as bending stresses during erection and the distance between shell nodes and their spatial target geometry.

Read More »

Gridshell Structure

In this paper by Frederic Tayeb, Olivier Baverel, Jean-François Caron, Lionel du Peloux, ductility aspects of a light-weight composite gridshell are developed.

Read More »