Living Architecture: Climate-responsive building expands in warm weather

Everything is "smart" these days. Smart watches, smart socks, smart phones. And now there is even smart architecture: building that have a mind of their own and can sense and change themselves according to their surroundings. One such project is the HygroSkin – Meteorosensitive Pavilion, a novel example of climate-responsive architecture. The architectural skin of this building autonomously opens and closes in response to weather changes. Amazingly, it requires no energy supply, nor any kind of mechanical or electronic control. The material structure itself is the machine. The responsive wood-composite skin adjusts its porosity in direct response to changes in relative humidity. The project was commissioned by the FRAC Centre Orleans and will be first shown in the exhibition ArchiLab 2013.