hipercroquis

Lance Hosey, of Atmo, and Soo-in Yang and David Benjamin, of the
Living, are working toward a similar goal: independence from the power
grid and mechanically produced energy.

Hosey’s Smart Shade employs the thermodynamics of zinc and steel to
control the amount of sunlight passing into a building’s interior. Each
Smart Shade blade consists of a layered composite metal. The top layer
of zinc expands and contracts more readily than the steel beneath it.
Contraction during cold winter months causes the blade to bend upward
and to let more light in; expansion during the summer causes the blade
to curve downward, shielding the interior from the sun’s rays.

Yang and Benjamin’s Living Glass uses elastic shape memory alloy
(SMA) wires to control the level of carbon dioxide in a room. Their
window system will sense the amount of carbon dioxide in a room through
sensors and SMAs arranged horizontally on a pliable plastic window.
When activated by a waft of carbon dioxide, the sensors send an
electric current through the SMA wires, causing them to contract and
pull open slits etched in the window. Fresh air flows inside the room
until there is equilibrium with the air outside, at which time the
electric current subsides, the slits close, and the SMA wires resume
their original shape.

Future versions may integrate flexible solar cells and lithium ion batteries to make the system energy independent.

Via we-make-money-not-art, metropolis and dezain.
Related: power-aware devices.

Technorati Tags: digital tectonics, interactive architecture

powered by performancing firefox