Biomimetic kinetic shading facade inspired by tree morphology for improving occupant’s daylight performance

Abstract

Many recent studies in the field of the kinetic façade developed the grid-based modular forms through primary kinetic movements which are restricted in the simple shapes. However, learning from biological analogies reveals that plants and trees provide adjustable daylighting strategies by means of multilayered and curvature morphological changes. This research builds on a relevant literature study, observation, biomimicry morphological approach (top-down), and parametric daylighting simulation to develop a multilayered biomimetic kinetic façade form, inspired by tree morphology to improve occupants’ daylight performance. The first part of the research uses a literature review to explore how biomimicry influences the kinetic façade’s functions. Then, the study applies the biomimicry morphological approach to extract the formal strategies of tress due to dynamic daylight. Concerning functional convergence, the biomimicry principles are translated to the kinetic façade form configuration and movements. The extracted forms and movements are translated into the design solutions for the kinetic façade resulting in the flexible form by using intersected-multilayered skin and kinetic vectors with curvature movements. The comprehensive annual climate-based metrics and luminance-based metric simulation (625 alternatives) confirm the high performance of the bio-inspired complex kinetic façade for improving occupants’ daylight performance and preventing visual discomfort in comparison with the simple plain window as the base case. The kinetic façade provides daylight performance improvement, especially the best case achieves spatial Daylight Autonomy, Useful Daylight Illuminance, and Exceed Useful Daylight Illuminance of 50.6, 85.5, 7.55 respectively.