Low Cost Self-assembling Kinetic façade system for Shading and Water harvesting

The appraisal of energy demands of informal communities living in spaces which are often re-appropriated, raises the issue of social discrimination instilled by un-affordability resulting in lack of required thermal comfort conditions. The present work aims to design an affordable, adaptable and modular façade system to retrofit existing building façades in diverse geographical, physical and social contexts. In addition to the reduction of energy demand by exploiting a variable shading mechanism, the design provides an advanced water harvesting system based on fog collection, which would further improve the standard of living. A snapping mechanism has been identified as a simple and smart way to manually operate the module. A numerical/mechanical analysis has been carried out to optimize the module size and to assure that actuation force does not exceed the critical threshold of 40N for manual operability. An ad-hoc analysis has shown a capability of the fog collector to harvest water in the range of 100-500 ml/m2/hr, depending on the type of net and on the site-specific climate. Personalization through variation in aesthetics and performance efficiency has been allowed by varying the net and materials at assigned topology of the load-bearing frame and water collectors, keeping the same structural system and functional mechanism.