Using a Biomimicry Approach in the Design of a Kinetic Facade to Regulate the Amount of Daylight Entering a Working Space

At present, buildings are increasingly being designed with transparent materials, with glass paneling being especially popular as an installation material due to its architectural allure. However, its major drawback is admitting impractical amounts of sunlight into interior spaces. Office buildings with excessive sunlight in indoor areas lead to worker inefficiency. This article studied kinetic facades as means to provide suitable sunlight for interior spaces, integrated with a triple-identity DNA structure, photosynthetic behavior, and the twist, which was divided into generation and evaluation. The generating phase first used an evolutionary engine to produce potential strip patterns. The kinetic facade was subsequently evaluated using the Climate Studio software to validate daylight admission in an indoor space with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) version 4.1 criteria. To analyze the kinetic facade system, the building envelope was divided into four types: glass panel, static facade, rotating facade (the kinetic facade, version 1); an existing kinetic facade that is commonly seen in the market, and twisting facade (the kinetic facade, version 2); the kinetic facade that uses the process to invent the new identity of the facade. In addition, for both the rotating facade and twisting facade, the degrees of simulation were 20, 50, 80, and 100 degrees, in order to ascertain the potential for both facades to the same degree. Comparing all facades receiving the daylight factor (DF) into the space with more or less sunlight resulted in a decreasing order of potential, as follows: entirely glass facade, twisting facade (the kinetic facade, version 2), rotating facade (the kinetic facade, version 1), and static facade. By receiving the daylight factor (DF), the facade moderately and beneficially filtered appropriate amounts of daylight into the working space. The daylight simulation results indicated that the newly designed kinetic facade (version 2) had more potential than other building envelope types in terms of filtering beneficial daylight in indoor areas. This article also experimented with the kinetic facade prototype in an actual situation to test conditional environmental potential. The twisting facade (the kinetic facade, version 2) was explored in the building envelope with varied adaptability to provide sunlight and for private-to-public, public-to-private, or semi-public working areas.