Smarter Buildings: Interacting with the environment

Experimenting with materials in architecture to achieve environmental benefits has led to the development of many outstanding innovations that have changed the way we interact with buildings.

Now architect Doris Kim Sung, assistant professor of architecture at the USC School of Architecture, is experimenting with how a building can interact with its environment through the materials used in its construction.

Her latest installation, “Bloom”, is 20-foot tall and made from 14,000 tiny sheets of metal that open and close with the sun manipulating the light within the structure.

Sung discovered a new use for a material usually used in thermostat coils that responds to temperature changes. The metal alloy, called “thermobimetal”, is made of two sheets of metal laminated together. Each metal expands at a different rate when heated, curling as the temperature rises and flattening when cooled.

The metal sheets curl upwards with the sun creating moving shaded areas within the installation when needed. Sung believes that it could be used to create canopies that close when the sun is above or vents that open when the air becomes too stuffy and is now working on ways to integrate thermobimetal with standard building components.

It looks fantastic and is a mixture of art and architecture that addresses an environmental need. See a video of the installation below and more can be found on their blog.