The aim of this project was to develop a responsive and kinetic façade of an existing building which reacts to the environment or an external factor. We chose the Bund Finance center at Shanghai. The building was designed by Foster & partners and Heatherwick studio in 2017.
Located in Shanghai, the bund center is a three story mixed- use development that has 420,000 square meters. The building concept was Inspired by traditional Chinese theatres. It has a curtain façade built up of bronze tubes that are designed in three layers.

This three layers move in their own rail, the upper level and the lower level move in the same direction, while the middle layer moves on the opposite direction. The moving façade adapts to the changing use of the building.

DESIGN PROCESS

For the process of the modelling of the Bund Center facade, two  kinetic movements were developed:

 The first – Change in length of the tubes, based on parameter of summer and winter sun position

The second – Rail path movement of the three layered façade around the building.

Rhino base model

                                                                                 First layer of tubes

                                                                               Second layer of tubes

                                                                                Third layer of tubes

Height variation of tubes based on summer and winter sun (attractor point movement)

 Rotation of tubes on rail of facade

Rotation of tubes on rail of facade

PSEUDOCODE

  • Starting from an overall model of the building, without the facade. 3 curves for each rail were referenced.
  • Followed by dividing  each curve into points. this point  then defined each tube around the rail. (There are 150 tubes per curve of 0.12 m  diameter)
  • The circles were then extruded in grasshopper with a wave profile using a graph mapper
  • Movement was achieved by shifting the list of heights
  • The second kinetic movement was done by adding a sun path that makes the façade react.  Altering the heights of the tubes depending on sun inclination. The distance from attractor point was used as the maximum value for target of the remapped value for extrusion

GRASSHOPPER SCRIPT

FAÇADE ANIMATION REACTING

RENDERS     

RESPONSIVE PARAMETRIC FACADE – BUND FINANCE CENTER is a project of IAAC, the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, developed in the Master in Advanced Architecture (MAA01) 2021/22 
Students: María Fernanda Rodríguez Orviz / Vasudha Karnani,Faculty: David Andres Leon / Ashkan Foroughi Dehnavi, Assistant Laukik Lad  / Uri Lewis Torres