Image: treehouse1977 | Flickr

Within architectural design, the notion of “building surface” and “building skin” are increasing in importance and are, thus, becoming elements which you as an architect can leverage to bring greater sensitivity to your built environments.

In fact, research is underway to develop new electric skins that are so pressure sensitive to touch that they are actually rivaling, and surpassing, human skin’s sensitivity to touch. And by using such pressure-sensitive electric skin in architecture, more meaningful ways for occupants to interact are likely to arise, where building installations become increasingly in tune with not only occupants’ needs, but also with the dynamic fluctuations of the environment which surrounds the building. Hence, building skin could serve as a bridge, sensing the touch “frequencies” between both occupants and the surrounding environment.

What Can a Building Do with Skin Data?

As more sensitive skin and installations become part of a larger architectural dynamic system, it brings with it greater ability to sense even the most subtle fluctuations in the environment, like wind, water or debris. And how might a building benefit by increasing its level of sensitivity to pressure in this manner? Well, it would move Read more

When You Think of “Skin”…What’s the First Thing You Think Of?

Have you ever compared building skin to human skin? Well, with new developments like nanotechnology, smart materials and ubiquitous computing the time is ripe to revisit the inner-workings of the human body’s largest organ. After all, there is much to learn by taking a closer look at what lies beneath its surface — particularly as it relates to architecture.

What do you typically think of when you think of “building skin”? Does it primarily function to keep the exterior outside and the interior inside? Or do you use it to bring the outside in within certain parts like windows, ducts and doors? Perhaps you have a more avant-garde way of working with “skin” — using it as part of your architectural language that allows your building to communicate with both its interior and exterior at the same time.

Wherever you may be in your ideas and way of designing building skin, I’m sure that the human skin can help to reinforce and spark new ideas for your architectural designs. You might be surprised to discover that there are many similarities between these two “skins”, and in essence, they are both there to protect and to communicate.

Can Human Skin Inspire Your Designs?

For starters, I want to show you this simple video that clearly shows how the human skin operates physiologically. Now is a good time to watch this sneak peek:

Notice any similarities between what human skin needs to do and Read more

Beyondthedarkroom | Dreamstime

Most building “skins” today are quite static. Instead of being a bridge that allows the exterior and interior to communicate, many building skins today serve to separate the interior from the exterior with only, if any, intermittent window openings. What if, instead, architects designed building skins to synchronize occupant environments with real-time occupant needs?

Jean Nouvel’s Institute of the Arab World in Paris (above) is an excellent example of how exterior walls can function as a membrane that breathes in and out. This shows one example of how a wall can be used like a nervous system to bridge between two otherwise separate environments. 

The skin can serve both as a shield to block out the negatives and as a bridge to connect the positives. Such an architectural building skin might be programmed as a rule-based system where certain occupant goals would be made into system objectives. The skin would maintain its own dynamic behavior as it works in real-time to meet occupant needs.