Resumen de Performative Wood: Physically Programming the Responsive Architecture of the HygroScope and HygroSkin Projects
Achim Menges, Steffen Reichert
In today's race for ever more ‘intelligent’ materials, wood, with its long association with craft and vernacular building traditions, is all too often overlooked. But upon closer examination it reveals a spectrum of properties that constitute a smart rather than an outdated material. Based on its moisture-sensitive characteristics, Guest-Editor Achim Menges, Director of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart, and Steffen Reichert, Research Associate at the ICD, have developed a number of groundbreaking weather-responsive systems. These integrate the function of sensor, motor and responsive components in strikingly simple wood elements. They demonstrate the material's capacity to replace machines and to unfold a truly ecologically embedded architecture by tapping into the abundant flows and energies of the environment.
