Some exciting things are happening in the construction industry, as concerns over energy and resilience move to the forefront of innovation.
As a result, we’ll hear more about something that’s been around for decades: kinetic architecture. Now, though, we’ll be hearing about intelligent façades that generate electricity, heat and algae biomass to be used to meet the building’s energy needs.
Thirty years ago we heard about "smart" buildings, by which we usually meant things like individualized lighting and ventilation for work spaces. Over time, these ideas moved into the main stream, and in many of the newer office buildings, those things have become the norm. And those things are being improved.
There is no doubt that many improvements are being driven by a warming climate and the aberrant weather variations that are a characteristic of it. What were once considered to be100-year storms might now occur every two or three years, which makes it necessary for our buildings and infrastructure to be resilient in the face of those storms. Building developers and owners are demanding that the architecture, engineering and construction industry erect buildings that incorporate the new features.
Consider:
— Windows that change their light permeability at the mere touch of a button;
— Façades capable of changing colour according to the sunlight;
— Façades and window parts with transparent photovoltaic modules integrated into them;
— Algae being bred to provide a building with its own biofuel.
All of those things have been talked about for several years. Now, though, they’re possible.
Façades that incorporate such features improve the energy efficiency of modern buildings, says Lothar Wondraczek, of Fredrich Schiller University, in Jena, Germany. He adds that if only a fraction of the potential has been tackled so far, it’s because "the relevant materials and production processes are still missing."
But a consortium has been formed in Europe to address that specific problem. There are 14 members, including academic and industrial partners. Over the next three years, the European Commission will contribute about €6 million, and the industrial partners will add another €1.2 million, making a research pool of about $10 million (Canadian). The idea of kinetic, or active façades got a big boost during the year just past, with the book, Kinetic Architecture: Designs for Active Envelopes, by engineer Russell Fortmeyer and architect Charles Linn, both of whom have also written about architecture for many years. The book compiles 24 examples from around the world.
In an interview, Linn pointed out that all the buildings in the book are much more complex than ordinary buildings. He’s quoted as saying that they all "involve many moving parts, such as venetian blinds that raise and lower by themselves, shading louvres, vents and windows that open and close with no human intervention, and lights that dim automatically."
One of the buildings, "has 20,000 wind, temperature, light and humidity sensors, which tell a complex building management system what the walls should do to make the building more comfortable and energy-efficient."
As an example, he used an office getting too warm because of too much sun. Sensors, he said, would tell the building’s management system, and that system would be able to open a window or an outside vent, and drop the shades. If the office was too bright, the system would dim the lights to save energy, and it would all be done automatically.
Many features in kinetic architecture are related to energy. So, too, are other innovations in design and construction which we should expect, if not this year, then in the near future. I’ll return to some of them next week.
Korky Koroluk is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. Send comments to editor@dailycommercialnews.com.
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