B4 - Group E - Allison Lock

For out term project, Laura Worley and I are planning to examine the present and future of adaptive, dynamic building systems. The term adaptive building generally refers to a system which senses changes in an environment and responds accordingly to benefit the building and its inhabitants. Adaptive systems are a young and rather undeveloped as a technological field. This is primarily due to the necessity if sensors in such a system. Sensors are used to provide real time information but they were not readily affordable until a couple of years ago.

Currently intelligent systems are becoming more common installations. The most typical systems include motion activated lights, air temperature control systems such as nest, and shifting, sun oriented facades. They are being applied across a wide range of construction types from grocery stores to offices and from high tech buildings to private homes. However we believe that the field is still rather undeveloped. With the expectation that the field will continue to grow significantly in the coming years, due to high sensor and computational capabilities, we have chosen to write a research paper that analyzes discusses upcoming applications and the future of adaptive building systems. It is expected that brief analyses of the history of adaptive systems, current uses, and personal predictions may also be included.

Since there will be a heavy focus on technologies that are currently unavailable and other future extensions of the field, it is expected that restricted research and prediction formation may be the most difficult part of constructing such a paper. It was decided that dynamic buildings are a worthwhile topic to study because of the quick and growing implementation of such technologies into common societal use. We expect this trend to continue and wish to examine the how much integration will occur, how it will affect daily life, and overall environmental and societal impacts.

Adaptive, dynamic buildings relate to intelligent buildings because they simplify control processes which would otherwise be labor intensive and detrimental to energy savings. The implications of such tools across general areas would allow for interactions between buildings to increase effective energy use while eliminating unnecessary waste and byproducts.

I commented on Cristian Almendariz’s and Alex Palma’s posts.

Construction Specialities Inc. "Adaptive and Dynamic Buildings – The Future of Environmental Design & Architecture."ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 10 Aug. 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2016.

Kim, Jieun. "Adaptive Façade Design for the Daylighting Performance in an Office Building: The Investigation of an Opening Design Strategy with Cellular Automata." International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies. Oxford Journals, 4 Mar. 2013. Web. 30 Jan. 2016.