Living envelope
"Like the skin of a living creature, the envelope is the primary actor in the complex process of maintaining homeostasis in the building"_Alejandro Zaera_The politics of the envelope.
As indicated by Alejandro Zaera, the envelope plays as the same role as our skin, protecting all the performances inside the building. Our skin is a magical part of our body since it has the ability to automatically adapt different kinds of living environment, allowing us to live in any places on the Earth. So the question is: Could the envelope adjust itself to adapt the changes of our living environment?
Thanks to the advanced technology, we are now able to produce a new kind of envelope: Dynamic and adaptive envelope. It is nice to see how this type of envelope promote our living environment when they can change their colors or the opacity due to the change of sunlight and local climate. Some kinetic envelopes are able to change their shape to reduce the heat gain or to get more daylight to the interior depending on the outside conditions. But is that enough to consider that those are living envelope?
Our skin is not only capable to protect us from the living environment but also it helps us to feel the sense of life when we touch somebody or something. We feel warm when we hold someone, we feel sad when we clean the tears on someone's face. The envelope also plays the same role like that. It does not only protect the building's interior but also interact with the surrounding context which contains the political, social and cultural issues. I am mentioning about the dimension, the form and the use of material for the envelope. It is weird to use a curved and glazing facade in an Asian ancient town where surrounds by wooden and linear architecture. It is weird to use a very thick loading bearing brick wall in an busy urban corner where there is not much space. So we should treat the envelope like a indispensable part of a local context.
From there, I think that living envelope is the target we are pursuing, where technology and political and social frame meet together. It enables us to adapt both, the change of climate and living conditions as well as the change of our society.
As indicated by Alejandro Zaera, the envelope plays as the same role as our skin, protecting all the performances inside the building. Our skin is a magical part of our body since it has the ability to automatically adapt different kinds of living environment, allowing us to live in any places on the Earth. So the question is: Could the envelope adjust itself to adapt the changes of our living environment?
Thanks to the advanced technology, we are now able to produce a new kind of envelope: Dynamic and adaptive envelope. It is nice to see how this type of envelope promote our living environment when they can change their colors or the opacity due to the change of sunlight and local climate. Some kinetic envelopes are able to change their shape to reduce the heat gain or to get more daylight to the interior depending on the outside conditions. But is that enough to consider that those are living envelope?
Our skin is not only capable to protect us from the living environment but also it helps us to feel the sense of life when we touch somebody or something. We feel warm when we hold someone, we feel sad when we clean the tears on someone's face. The envelope also plays the same role like that. It does not only protect the building's interior but also interact with the surrounding context which contains the political, social and cultural issues. I am mentioning about the dimension, the form and the use of material for the envelope. It is weird to use a curved and glazing facade in an Asian ancient town where surrounds by wooden and linear architecture. It is weird to use a very thick loading bearing brick wall in an busy urban corner where there is not much space. So we should treat the envelope like a indispensable part of a local context.
From there, I think that living envelope is the target we are pursuing, where technology and political and social frame meet together. It enables us to adapt both, the change of climate and living conditions as well as the change of our society.
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