Smart self-adapting origami structures

Assuring comfortable lighting, thermal and acoustic assets is one of the fundamental problems in architecture and interior design. In this regard, smart adaptive surfaces can provide an effective response to today’s needs for more sustainable and performative buildings. In this work, we propose a conceptual design of environment-responsive structures that exploits rigid origami folding and deployability. Folding structures are composed by origami-inspired modules, able to change the relevant degree of openness by adjusting their spatial configuration in response to variations of environmental parameters like lighting, noise and temperature, all recorded by a network of embedded (micro)sensors. As for the actuation, the deployment of each modular geometry is induced at key points, appropriately chosen on the basis of the origami kinematics to only slide along a linear axis, so as electric motors with a positional control logic can be adopted. At varying physical properties of the panels mounted on the frames, the proposed solution can have different applications: in interiors for sound absorption and acoustic insulation; in exteriors as a shading, UV filter or light refraction system. In the latter case, the adoption of e.g. dye-sensitized solar cells as panels can also promote the (at least partial) self-powering strategy for the adaptive structure. Through physical and digital prototyping and through small-scale physical models, the effectiveness of the proposed solution is discussed for some site-specific applications, from the viewpoints of self-sensing, selfactuation and self-powering.