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Architecture That Changes Shape In Response To Heat
An anonymous reader writes "A group of students at Barcelona's Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalunya has created a functioning prototype of architecture that adapts to environmental inputs. "The project, Translated Geometries, tackles the idea by developing a new use for Shape Memory Polymers, a composite material that can deform and return to its original state when activated by cues like heat, humidity and light." The idea is this: create a wall or a roof out of a series of folded triangles. At low temperatures, the roof would be in its folded state, laying mostly flat. When exposed to heat, the creases would flex and expand, unfolding the roof and giving it a much greater surface area, thereby increasing its convective cooling. As it cools, it folds back down into a smaller shape."
And I thought the constant hum of air conditioning units was annoying. I'd hope this wouldn't be as annoying as waiting for a leaky gutter to finally plop out the next drop of water.
So, help me out here. The roof gets hot, so it expands, thereby exposing much more surface to the sunlight. How is this considered a good thing?
And the like. Very 1970s. Welcome. To the machine.
a house every 10y??? You are surely mad or are houses in Murica of this bad quality? I suppose this would mean the house was built by a huge corporation as small company would go bust in no time.
A house is something that has to work for very long times. You don't just put mechanical parts on a house that will have to work for such a long time. It's a house, not a car. And you wouldn't want to live in a house that needs regular maintenance of major parts of its structure, not to mention keeping everything of that sealed etc.
It's one thing to build a toy, it's another to build a house.
House I'm living in now is 40 years old or a bit more.
House I lived in previously was 50 years old, or a bit more.
Only people I know personally who live in a house less than ten years old just built the house....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
First issue is will this material be suitable for wind speeds of 100 miles per hour?
I live in a coastal city where wind gusts reach that speed and that is "a bad winter storm".
Did they think to look at the mechanical ventilators used on glass houses? These are driven by the thermal expansion of wax (incompressible fluids can exert a very large force)
For the cost of the proposed surface perhaps they should be looking at optimal spacing of solar panels (solar panels have a higher initial cost but have a long term financial benefit as opposed to the alternative roof material). On a tile roof the installation requires an air gap between the panels and the roof, this gap has cooling benefits however panels are often placed edge-to-edge preventing any hot air trapped from escaping.
http://www.iaac.net/
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
It would change maybe twice a day in practice. The idea is to lower energy consumption, not eliminate it. It only needs to move occasionally when the energy needed can be more than recovered.
Lots of big things have lasted 100 years of operation. Some bridges are raised several times a day, for example.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I'd rather use thermochromic paints.
You might be able to find other references, but here is a whole study. http://heatisland2009.lbl.gov/...
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
There are already habitable structures that change shape in response to heat. The igloo.
I have a mini home made of candle wax. By heating it it flows down into the very mold that made it, cools, hardens and regenerates. Have i just done easily what a high tech firm conceptualizes? Have the broken my patents?
Oh look, a 370 year old house made of wood.
Building a house out of wood doesn't automatically mean that it'll fall down in 10 years. If a wood framed structure fails that early, the fault lies either with the architectural planning or the use of low quality wood that isn't suitable for construction.
Don't worry. At 70 degrees Celsius all water from the gutter will just evaporate and your air conditioner will catch fire.
But you'll be too busy being boiled like an egg to care about the noise.
From TFA:
Exposing the SMP to heat above 60 to 70 degrees Celsius causes the material to become flexible enough to undergo geometric deformations. The material then cools into its new rigid form. Apply another round of heat, and it will return to its original memory state.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Think of those plastic pieces in the video, but as separate pieces arranged in a lattice similar to that of fish scales. Each scale would have a hinge on top and heat would cause the scales to push themselves off the wall. Then, when they get hot, they would shade the wall, but when cool could lie flat to create a partially (leaky, I'm sure) insulating air pocket between the building wall and the scale wall.
Seems simpler, and if a few scales fail, then they could be easily tageted for replacement.
Yeah, my wood house is 110 years old. I'd say the biggest risk to these old houses are termites and the old mortar in the foundations crumbling. Note that you do have to maintain the roof and siding.
I was thinking having expanding shades for windows, or window overhangs. In the summer they would heat up, expand, and block the sun from directly entering the window - helping the inside stay cool. In the winter they wouldn't expand, allowing the sun to enter and keeping the inside warmer. Passive heating and cooling, if you will.
I refuse to sign
Many of them are made of wood, which makes it cheap compared to a "real" house.
What a dumbass. Don't you realize the majority of house in the US are made of wood? Even the ones that look like brick are wood house with a brick facade.
Evaporative cooling doesn't work very well in really hot, dry areas like Arizona, Nevada, Southern Utah, etc. in the US. What you end up with is instead of 110 F and ~10% rel humidity you get ~100 F and 90% rel humidity. In other words, you end up worse off.