Environmentally Responsive Kinetic Façade for Educational Buildings

The sustainable development of educational buildings has become an increasingly important goal for university campuses. This research develops a proposal for a kinetic façade employing mechanical moveable components for an educational building. Due to the pedagogically different needs of courses taught in educational spaces, it is desirable to design spaces that are able to meet changing functional and aesthetic requirements. The transformation of an exterior curtain wall is performed by means of movement and twisting of its components in order to regulate the temperature and sun penetration for each class during the course of a day. This paper proposes a curtain wall system for educational buildings. The transformation mechanism and the details of the wall's components, along with the construction plans and material used are presented. It is argued that the proposed design can respond properly to the architectural principles of educational buildings in terms of form and function, while also respecting the varying needs of users and environmental sustainability.