Dynamic architecture: solution to every day architectural problems

Nature is the most dynamic and ever changing thing I have come across. Even if people say the trees don’t change and they are static, I would say they are dynamic too in their own ways. Trees shed leaves, bear tender ones, and bear fruits and so on. Their colour changes, looks and foliage changes. In short anything that stays the same for ever or fails to change for real will fail to keep the interest on. To keep it interesting and positive, everything needs to update and change. This is true with architecture too; re painting a building once in a while doesn’t alone do the magic any longer. Buildings should not be considered as a show piece in some one’s curious rack.

And sometimes it’s just not the case of interest or uniqueness alone; a dynamic building can make a structure effective and climatically more viable and meaning full. Houses are often made as strong and rigid as possible to defend and withstand the worst possible conditions and situations it may came across, but what about the best and most desirable situations? How can you prepare your building to embrace the good things that nature throws at it, how to yield the best out of all the worst and good situations around you? Through some demonstrations here I’m trying to solve some of these problems. And when you go into modular or dynamic structures, these issues should also be addressed, because from what I have seen most of the modular approaches in architecture ends up in making refugee shelter or shacks that looks like a portable toilets. Your building also needs a soul, it should breathe and feel. Dynamism can also be achieved by understanding the climatology of a place. Following are my illustrations.

1.1. Never get bored with a building layout, if you can alter or vary the layout as per will. What if your living space patio can also be used as your bedroom’s balcony when required, there by not changing or increasing the total area or other parameters? Also in a typical building there are spaces that are rudimentary, a space that is not required after a certain point of time or not required until a certain point of time or situation. In case of a bedroom that is being used only after late evening hours, you don’t have to leave dedicated spaces which might be used only for a certain short period after a particular point of time. For example a bedroom need not have balcony all the time along, but it can borrow one from a living space which might not be used after a certain hour. This way the whole design is made efficient and kept dynamic and the illustration shown above is demonstrating this phenomenon.

1.2. The idea explained previously can also be enhanced to meet the mood and emotional requirements of an entire residential unit as in case of a flat or condominium. You wake up one morning and decide to take your entire house up a couple of storeys, an act that would change your house for once without changing it for real. The same can also be done if you wish to bring it down a couple of storeys. It’s an increasing phenomena these days, were all the city dwellers prefer to keep their flat units as higher up as possible, to avoid pollution and also for a better view and emotional state. Also the top storeys are in turn more expensive than the lower units. The illustration shown here is an attempt to demonstrate the dynamism and variation that you can achieve by relocating you residential units at will. 

 

1.3. Normally with pitched roof and with properly designed gable opening it has the advantage of expelling the hot air and letting in cooler air from outside. This happens when the comparatively lighter hot air rises up and is sucked out owing to the wind flowing through oppositely placed gable openings combined with pressure variation, void thus created will be occupied by comparatively cooler air. This however is not desirable when the temperature go really low. Under low temperature the process needs to reversed and hotter air is preferred in the occupant spaces. This can be mechanically achieved by lowering the ceiling height and thus pushing the air back in the occupant space. This is demonstrated in the above illustration.

 

1.4. Gables are very effective ways to ensure proper air circulation. But the proper placement of gable requires some calculation and orientation adjustments. But it is normally not possible when or dealing with row housing, closely packed housing communities and similar situations. In such cases it will be more effective if the roof can transform itself to ensure air circulation as shown above. This is in effect a temporary air scoop. 

1.5. Flat roofs and pitched ones have their own set of advantages under different situations. If there is way to combine both or by introducing some mechanical adjustments or levers to facilitate the transition between both, an efficient and one of a kind roofing system can very well be made possible. The demonstration showed here is an illustration of the above mentioned idea. In case of summer and in arid situations high roofs or pitched ones are preferred. The same can have an adverse effect in winter. Situations were hotter or comparatively warmer air is preferred in the occupant areas, flat roofs are found more effective.

1.6.  Images shown here explain the most familiar facts about climate oriented designs. The first image shows how a normal window with normal overhang is susceptible to glares and reflected heat rays. The second image shows how a raised window eliminates reflected rays and lower level louvers ensure circulation of cooler air through occupant areas as cooler air is heavier. The reflected rays and excess heat can also be defended by using an extra half wall which is placed at a distance from the support wall thus leaving a space in between, this would act like trees placed closed to the building with adequate space to channel air in to the building and not limiting them.

1.7. Flat roofs are not effective solution when the requirement id to invite more air in to the building, and this case is more severe when it comes to closely packed neighbourhoods. The solution will be to add a lifted up air scoop as shown in the figure which will in turn develop enough suction to guide out the comparatively hotter air trapped in the room and thus cooling the room.

1.8. Metal cladded buildings in the world are considered bad for the environment. These building are known to have altered the micro-climatic conditions of cities and thus raising its temperature and so on. Naturalists and environmentalist movements have become a regular sight in such metal cladded neighbourhoods. But when you think about it a little bit more, this problem itself carries the solution for the situation. Applying the general laws of physics, what I have learned here is metal clads can in turn work in reverse pattern to lower the temperature of a building’s inside. The above shown image explains how this work. The heat from the sun when falls on the metal surface, raises the temperature of the air close to it steeply thus causing it to rise up because the air has become lighter now, eventually as the temperature raises further this process becomes more spontaneous and the speed of the upward air movement increases. Under this situation if there are perforations provided on the room’s wall, just like air holes, the comparatively hotter air inside the room will be sucked out with the hotter air trapped between the clad and the wall. To accelerate this process an air exhauster can also be added in the gap. Thus the process can be successfully reversed to cool the air inside.

Fast and effective footing influenced by Mother Nature:

              These days pile foundations of all kind are becoming common and are widely used in all sorts of land situations. There are wide varieties of other foundation techniques too, but still these techniques fall short under certain situations and the amount/expense on unconventional foundations and footings are also enormous. But even after all these; there are constant treats of foundation failures faced by new buildings. But if you look closely nature herself answers all your queries related to foundation and footing. The roots of trees and plants hold a huge archive of information’s in this direction.

                For example let’s take the case of normal concrete piles and it looks something like this:

This can be compared to a tap root system as shown here:

But the thing is not all the plants have same kind of root system. Plants or trees adapt to situations and for different conditions the root structure is different and has different depths, spread and lengths. But nevertheless, they all perform the same function and they are all strong for the purpose. Hence the foundation can also be modified in to something completely different following the instances of fibrous or prop roots which looks something like this: 

 

The footing if developed from this might look something like this:

Here the arrow represents the downward force and the footings are an enhanced version of anchor grip for screws and bolts. In the example shown above the casing or the foot grip can be taped or hammered to the ground and should be allowed to settle on its on load to an extent.

Then the structure can later on mounted of fitted or built on top of this. Here foundation and the super structure are two different independent components which are connected allowing a certain extent of freedom between them.

Apart from this there can be a lot of other designs that can be drawn from these root patterns, and in case of buildings that might also face a threat of uprooting owing to windy situations, the same design can also be used like this:

In case of tall building a combination of both will prove more effective, like shown here:

The casing shows in all the illustrations are detailed out in one of my previous blogs. In all the cases the casing opens up after installation mechanically or on filling in of cement or other material.The material choice and their surface treatment should also be decided after a careful study of the land situations.