A responsive morphing media skin

Existing media façades do not function as fenestration devices. They have been used mainly for visual communication and aesthetic purposes. This paper introduces a responsive morphing skin that can act as an active fenestration device as well as a media skin. We investigate new possibilities of using form-changing materials in designing responsive morphing skins that respond to environmental conditions and act as a communicative display. The design experiment that embodied this investigation, namely Blind, serves as a new layer of analogue media brise-soleil for existing space. It communicates the relationships between interior and exterior spaces visually and projects mutable imageries to the surrounding environment through sunlight. The design process of Blind simulates the responsive behaviour of the intended architectural skin by integrating physical computing and parametric design tools. This process includes the integration of soft apertures and architectural morphing skin to introduce a novel design method that enables an architectural skin to be a means of communication and fenestration. It responds to changing stimuli and intends to improve the spatial quality of existing environments through two types of transformations: morphological and patterned.