Project Title: Cellular Morphology Facade // Prototype

Type: Exhibition Installation, Facade Prototype

Categories: Architecture, Material System, Computation, Digital Fabrication

Location: New Delhi

Design & Computation: Sushant Verma

Assembly: Apoorva Soni, Mohan Nath, Anand Gawali, Abhishek Singh, Swati Gautam

Visualization: Marco Danesi, Alessandra Peroni

 

 

Project Description

 

Cellular Morphology Façade System: An algorithmically designed façade system that can be optimized for any climatic context and building typology, controlling heat, light & visibility in a space.

March 2015//New Delhi, India: rat[LAB] – Research in Architecture & Technology, a London-originated design technology firm unveiled the design of ‘Cellular Morphology Façade’ which is a building skin system that can adapt to multiple climatic contexts and building conditions. The façade is currently in proposal stage and a large scale prototype of the same was exhibited at Alliance Francaise de Delhi as a part of ’20 under 35’ Exhibition in February 2015. To demonstrate the environmental potentials of the façade system, rat[LAB] as made a demonstration on an existing high-rise in New Delhi – Gopal Das Bhawan located in Connaught Place. Since the convex shaped frontal of building faces south-west, it receives a major component of its light and heat (solar gain) from this part of the façade.

 

CMF System (Cellular Morphology Façade) is digitally retrofitted on S-W façade of the tower and consists of multiple unique components of hexagon topology. The hexa-grid system is controlled through an algorithm that alters its density and attraction during the concept design stage. Six prominent functional zones are speculated as attractor points on the façade that become the first parameter of control and Solar insolation analysis on existing S-W façade becomes the second guiding parameter. With the new morphology of this retrofitted façade, local angular variations are introduced that can redistribute the sunlight in a differentiated manner on the building envelope. This can potentially change the way building is heated up and gets daylight in the interior spaces. Light, heat & visibility of / from interior space can now be optimized as per user requirements, adding a locally embedded intelligence in the new façade geometry. 

 

In an exhibition at Galerie Romain Rolland, Alliance Francaise de Delhi, Sushant Verma / rat[LAB] was shortlisted as one of the 20 designers from Delhi (5 from architecture / habitat category) to be a part of 20under35 Exhibition 2015 by DesignXDesign, a joint initiative of Alliance Francaise de Delhi and Studio IF. rat[LAB] presented a large scale prototype of ‘Cellular Morphology Façade’ system that can potentially be optimized to changing solar insolation & daylight requirements of a building. The mathematically driven prototype consists of 917 unique cells made of 5,392 non-identical surfaces & 5,227 customized joints fabricated through digital prototyping techniques.