Article:

The paper presents research for wind-responsive architecture. The main objectiveis the digital design methodology incorporating the dynamic, fluctuating windflow into the shape-generating process of architectural envelopes. Thesecomputational studies are advanced and informed through physical prototypingmodels, allowing a hybrid method approach. The negative impacts of the wind atthe building scale (wind loads), as well as urban scale (wind discomfort), can beavoided and even transformed into an advantage by incorporating the local windconditions to the process of creating architectural envelopes with adaptivestructures. The paper proposes a tensegrity-membrane system which, whenexposed to the dynamic wind flow, enables a local passive shape adaptation.Thus, the action of the wind pressure transforms the shape of the buildingenvelope to an unsmoothed, dimpled surface. As a consequence, the aerodynamicproperties of the building are modified, which contributes to reducing windsuction and drag force. Moreover, the slight shape change materializes andarticulates the immaterial wind phenomena. For a better understanding of thedynamic geometric properties, one unit of the wind-responsive envelope is testedthrough simulations, and through physical prototypes. The idea andmaterial-geometric studies are subsequently applied in a specific case study,including a designed building envelope in an industrial silo cluster in Stockholm.