Flectofin® Project Description

Flectofin wins International Bionic-Award 2012

The International Bionic-Award 2012 of the Schauenburg-Foundation has been awarded to the members of the Flectofin®-team. Julian Lienhard and Simon Schleicher from the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) - University of Stuttgart, Simon Poppinga and Tom Masselter from the Plant Biomechanics Group (PBG) of the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, as well as Lena Müller and Julian Sartori from the Institute of Textile Technology and Process Engineering ITV Denkendorf received the 10.000€ prize in recognition for their outstanding work on the Flectofin® –  A novel sun-shading system for complex building facades that was inspired by the elastic deformation behavior of the Bird-Of-Paradise flower. The award ceremony was organized by the VDI and took place on October 26th, 2012 within the framework of the “Patents from Nature” Bionic Congress in Bremen/Germany.

Further Informations:

Flectofin Project Description (EN)

Short Project Description (DE)

Interview with Simon Schleicher and Julian Lienhard (DE)

VDI-Pressemitteilung (DE)

VDI-Announcement (EN)

Call for submissions: International Bionic-Award 2014

Contact:

Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design ITKE

University of Stuttgart, Germany

Keplerstraße 11 D-70174 

Fon: +49-(0)711-685-83280

info@itke.uni-stuttgart.de

www.itke.uni-stuttgart.de

 

ITKE’s video for the AAG 2012

Thanks to all contributors! See you in Paris.
Advances in Architectural Geometry symposium will take place in Paris, Centre Pompidou, Sept. 27-28th. For more information visit the official website: http://aag12.architecturalgeometry.at/

ITKE’s website: www.itke.uni-stuttgart.de

Video of the Kinetic Facade at the EXPO Yeosu

The architecture office soma just released a video of the Kinetic Facade of the Thematic Pavilion at the EXPO 2012, which they designed in collaboration with Knippers Helbig advanced engineering and our ITKE institute.

Flectofin@ Bayrisches Fernsehen

Two recent TV-documentaries report about our research on the Flectofin and other elastic shading systems. The first one was done by the BMBF – BIONA and can be seen here: http://youtu.be/XyLR_-fW0aA

The other one will be on air upcoming Sunday 20.05.2012, 21:15 Uhr in Bayrisches Fernsehen

http://www.br.de/fernsehen/bayerisches-fernsehen/programmkalender/sendung293008.html

ITKE contributes to the Thematic Pavilion at the Expo 2012 Yeosu, South-Korea

Recently, the ITKE was given the opportunity to contribute with their research on elastic deformations and bio-inspired mechanisms for another project of an architectural scale – The Thematic Pavilion at the EXPO 2012 in Yeosu, South Korea. The design of the pavilion was done by soma architecture, Vienna. The institute helped in the development of the Kinetic Facade as part of Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering.

The Thematic Pavilion is one of the main buildings of 2012 Yeosu Expo. One of its main features is the 140m long and up to 13m high facade. 108 operable lamellas can be adjusted to requirments of light and building physics. Additionally, the kinematic facade allows to run special choreographies and act as a moveable eye catcher and media screen. Inspired by the institute’s research on plant movements and kinematic mechanisms like the Flectofin, the here implemented system, which was further developed by Knippers Helbig, is also based on elastic deformation and utilizes the failure mode of shell buckling to its favor to obtain a unique motion. Central to this structural concept is to use FRP lamellas with defined stiffness distribution. Actuators at top and bottom of each lamella are compressing the lamella asymmetrically which creates a deformation outwards and sidewards, which opens the facade.  Various LEDs illuminate the facade during night time and intensify the visual motion of the facade.

Further Links:

Article in ArchDaily (english)

Article from the University of Stuttgart (german)

Animation of the kinematic facade http://vimeo.com/40569576

picture: © soma architects

picture: © simon schleicher

ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2010 @youtube

Since multiple people asked me to post the video again that shows the assembly process of the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2010 to which i was project manager,

here again the link.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwaAKjkXlSA