explorative environments

With Windy Facades the surface of buildings is broken up to reach sensual transparency between inside and outside. The facade consists of flexible patterns. Like leaves they can dance in the wind and perform a spectacle of light and breezes of air. On one side they provide an environment argument by the environmental forces, on the other wind load is compensated by in the flexible panels from the structure. By adding materials that are able to convert mechanical deformations into energy (see Piezoelectricity), those facades could even produce energy.

The facades where developed during the smart house project organized by Prof. Peter Eckart.

Pre-degree work. HfG Offenbach 2001, Tutor Prof. Dieter Mankau.

Plankton is known as an amazing natural being. It can multiply it’’s own biomass by 40 in 24 hours, and is an important resource in cosmetics and food industry. By the way it produces oxygen and hydrogen thus fresh air and energy. Why not implement this natural system in housing ?
During my Pre-degree I did an study how to integrate Plankton Reactors into facades or industrial plants to face 21 century problems in energy production. Beside the use of plankton for cosmetics or animal feed it should be seen it’’s an serious possibility to produce human food out of it.

Further informations:

Fraunhofer Institute Stuttgart: Mikroalgen zur Massenproduktion

The DIY Hydrogen Bioreactor by futurefarmers.com

Developed during the vvvv media programming workshop of Sebastian Oschatz. HfG Offenbach 2005.

Cyto Wallpaper is an iconic installation concerning the idea of upcoming artificial environments in our personal environment, which in this case allow you to explore the Biodiversity on your wall. The projected patterns are modified with an cellular automaton like used in the game of live by John Horton Conway. The automate gets it input from a camera capturing people moving in front of the projection.With an interface the automaton can be reprogrammed during its runtime to explore the live conditions of different Biospheres on the wall.

It’s an example of the idea to augment everyday objects with distinct additive scientific information. This approach can be understood as an overstatement of the classic design claim form follows function. Carried out strict this claim leads to objects visualizing scientific facts. Good examples could be found where ever construction goes to extremes, for example in Gothic cathedrals, light construction bike frames etc.