Description

For the critical practice track at the ICSA symposium in 2022 an installation was designed and built with dynamically bent thin glass. The installation served as a prototypical setup to investigate the potential use of thin glass in adaptive building facades.

Kinetic building envelopes might be employed to support building operation in a wider spectrum of weather conditions. Traditionally, in such envelopes, extensive supplemental mechanisation is applied to move discrete components. This affects the aes-thetics, maintainability and durability of envelopes. This submission presents a prototype of dynamic thin glass, that is actuated along the edge, and by twisting glass strips, explores new kinetic tectonics. A process of thinking through prototyping allows the maker and those examining the work to develop new ideas about transparent kinetic systems, and their role in future facades.