BCI - Inspired Building Design

October 26

5:30 AM - Dark cooler morning time in downtown San Jose Del Cabo in the square - very light breeze - city sounds and soft lights - colorful buildings and flags

This BCI session focused on contemplating about an exterior wall design that works to keep buildings cooler. This design is inspired by the torch cactus and camel fur. It uses ridges and spikes to naturally create shade and conduct wind across the surface as well as collect water and allow for heat to “transpire from the building. I have been thinking about this as a residential application primarily but was excited to today thinking about it as a commercial application. Commercial buildings have improved their efficiency at a much slower rate than residential buildings and the primary reasons for this is the increased use of glass which creates more heat as well as the increased ventilation systems that run in the buildings.(The Energy Gang Podcast). If we changed the shape to be circular versus the more common square and incorporated ridged and spiked sections as well as porous strips that allowed for ventilation this could naturally decrease the amount of ventilation needed by cooling the building and allow for natural expiration of air. In colder climates with cool seasons where a building is heated the added challenge would be working to ensure that when heaters are running heat does not escape at the material section that allows moisture to escape and creates a vapor barrier of water to reduce heat exchange.

The three images show the idea of the overall design but the windows would work more like the second image with the solid areas in between being made up of the ridged and spiked material.

To work around this I think it would be interesting to instead develop the idea of mimicking the stomata of the cactus that open at night. These would be small openings that are screened that allow air to pass through the walls adding ventilation to the building. In hot temperatures, these would be open mainly at night to allow cooler air to pass through the building but close during the day to keep the cooler air in. During the colder temperature times, these could be kept closed. They could be designed to be on a single level that starts from the top and then has a gravity domino effect of closing all of the ones below so to reduce the need to have electricity running to each one to close them and another level would work the same way but open them.

The final contemplation I had was about how the cactus-inspired design could better provide areas for plants to seed and birds to nest. This would also create a more diverse ecosystem in the cities as well as more varied textures for beauty.

Overall the cactus-inspired design would reduce heat island effects by reducing the amount of glass used and energy used at buildings.