Today's building products are static, unresponsive to changing nature of the external environment, which can present some limitations. As this Spectrum News report shares, researchers are working on products that can adapt and respond to the world around them, giving them advantages like never before.
How can the skin of a building function more like human skin? Doris Sung, Associate Professor of Architecture at USC, is tackling this question by developing some innovative building materials that utilize “thermo bi-metal,” a unique, dual-alloy metal that responds to heat and cold.
Among her innovations is a double-paned window that contains bi-metal leaves that bend and flip depending on the temperature to help regulate heat intake and output from buildings. One of Sung’s goals is to model building materials more on natural processes, materials that are active and respond to changing environmental conditions.
“Human skin is very smart,” explained Sung at her Rolling Hills workshop. “It does so many different things. It can protect you from disease and heat and cold. So, building skin, if it can do more, then the central mechanical system doesn't have to pump so hard. You don’t have to use so much energy.”
Sung started delving into smart building materials when she saw the shortcomings of the traditional passive materials normally used in architecture. Her designs have an organic, almost sculptural feel, but the principles behind them are simple.
“Using computer programs, we can make things very fluidly change and once you start doing that, [the material] starts to be able to mimic human nature and things that happen in nature a little more,” said Sung.
