Adaptive Building Envelope Structures

Abstract

Climate changes which are increasing year by year are impacting not our environment but also our daily lives. One of the problems is the emission of greenhouse gases which are produced by householdings using heating fuel. Buildings in the Europe Union represents for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s very necessary to think about how to reduce consumption of energy and emissions. To design a strong building nowadays is very difficult and complex task, due to a growing to fulfil sustainability in the built environment, societal and economic performance requirements. Technologies, methods, and technical solutions are changing in building construction. More and more we have passive, active or net-zero buildings, and it’s the first step to reduce emissions in householding sector. Moving forward, adaptive building envelope structures which incorporates using biomimicry principles, are the next step to find solutions how to save energy and consumptions. Biomimicry teaches a way how to find and integrate the processes from nature and use them in research and design. The main goal is to identify physical characteristics of animal thermoregulation strategies such as fur, fats, vasoconstriction, and work harmony with the nature. For better results, it is important to collect all data, systemize, filter, and arrange it to create a database with the nature properties and technical information. After that the results shows the potential of a new adaptive building envelope structure database which can be used by environmental specialists, also other engineers as well as architects and civil engineers.