Dynamic components and adaptive elements are becoming increasingly important in contemporary architecture, and not just because of their visual effect. If architects and engineers are engaging more and more with the issue of movement – whether in the form of sun-tracking solar cells, lowerable walls, or intelligently programmed elevators – it’s because they are busy exploring responses to three challenges: How can we control and reduce the energy requirement of buildings? How can we expand the range of possible uses? And how can we represent, illustrate, accommodate, and control dynamic movements in buildings? Designers and builders who seek to use kinetic components face technical and design challenges that aren’t covered by traditional structural theory. For these users, this book presents the technical tools and constructional solutions that will allow them to implement these movements concretely and deploy them functionally within the domains of of ‘Energy, ‘ ‘Change of Use, ‘ and ‘Interaction.’ First it lays out the fundamentals and design principles of kinetics in architecture, technology, art, and nature in a structured manner. In a third section, forty movable elements are shown in action, each on a double page – with specially prepared phase drawings and organized by type of movement, including rotation, sliding, folding, and transformation. The international examples from noted architects range from window mechanisms to solar protection and light redirection systems, movable walls and roofs, and movable civil engineering structures.
Table des matières
A Theory and planning
Movement in space and the movement of objects
Exploring space – Creating space – Dancing space
The dynamics of nature
Motion in photography and film
Robots and space
Movement and construction principles
The principles of designing movement
The principles of mechanics
Scale and complexity of systems
Typologies of movement
Choosing materials
High-strenght and flexible materials
Movable load-bearing structures
Movable connections
Actuators
Measuring, controlling, regulating
Planning guidelines and legal frameworks
Future movement strategies
Harnessing the changing state of matter
Changing colours, forms and properties
Smart Structures
Growth
B Applications and functions
Changing and extending uses and functions
Variable walls
Variable room elements
Opening the building envelope
Mobile and movable building envelopes
Conserving and generating energy
Architecture, movement and energy
The principle of efficiency
Solar gain in context
Factor 1.4 – The potential of movement for solar gain
Daylight direction using moving deflectors
Interaction: Recognizing, controlling and representing movement
Elevators and conveyors
Recognizing and representing movement
C Buildings and building elements – Case studies
Swivel
Rotate
Flap
Slide
Fold
Expand and contract
Gather and roll up
Pneumatic
A propos de l’auteur
Michael Schumacher is a professor of design and construction at Leibniz University Hannover.