Dynamic Material Systems for Responsive Architectural Interfaces

The paper presents an on-going research on responsive systems in architecture. In doing so it shifts away from current and past examples of mechanical approaches of adaptation, trying to discover and inform the recently developed territory of material embedded responsiveness.

The paper examines the following questions: Is it possible to envisage structures that share the principles of adaptation and response of living organisms, and which are the mechanisms that can be extracted in order to inform responsive physical interfaces without external control? What are the conceptual and technological challenges faced when designing self-actuated responsive interfaces?

The research claims that material advancements present an opportunity to rethink architecture as part of its environment. It focuses on the articulation of simple material systems that through their intrinsic properties respond to the environment’s energies. In particular, the study proposes, the utilization of polymer composites and shape-changing materials; materials able to change their shape in response to environmental stimuli (temperature, moisture, pressure). Those morpho-dynamic materials have the potential of enabling the integration of sensing-actuation capabilities into seamless yet heterogeneous structures. Polymers of different hardness and elasticity contribute to the passive response of the system and its structural integrity, while ‘smart’ shape changing materials contribute to the microclimatic modulation of the system as well as its spatial re-configuration.  Material organization is being influenced by biological processes of growth and adaptation, which are dealing simultaneously with structure, form and performance through one material solution.

The field of investigation inevitable leads to an interdisciplinary approach, combining theories and tools from material science, biology and systems theory; the latter becoming a framework of both biological and social systems of self-regulation and feedback.

Examples of shape-changing material systems and potential applications in architecture researched in an academic studio will be discussed within the paper.