The New Era of Parametric Façade Design

Façade is one of the most expressive, inspiring and complex aspects of building design. It is the outermost skin of a building and has a multitude of roles and functions, from providing a visual character to providing a shield against external conditions. While innovation continues to happen in the facade industry in term of material possibilities, there is a direct correlation of innovation with the evolving language of building skin designs that are driven by advanced design technologies. Today, the role of a façade, interior skin or a cladding, is as complex as the building itself as it needs to strike a balance between all the parameters such as aesthetics, visual character, structural stability, solar heat gain, daylight filtration, visibility, thermal comfort, branding and programmatic zoning, etc.

What stops us to integrate all aspects of a cladding system in design?

Is it the complexity of the problem or is it the inadequate knowledge of available design tools? Perhaps, it is a combination of both. However, both these issues can be sorted with the help of a specialist. Façade design specialists can take up roles of design and building of facades with their association of engineers and vendors. There needs to be two-way processes of dependency between designers’ visions and material innovations in the market for a mutually dependent innovation to occur. Looking at the on-going intersections of design end technology many designers have taken up the expertise of facade designing by use of computational design techniques, namely Parametric Design and Algorithmic Design. The word ‘Parametric’ itself has been one of the most over-used and over-abused word in the architecture today. This is even more relevant for the façade design industry as the demand for parametrically driven façade designs has been increasing due to more global awareness and multi-objective functionality one can achieve.

Parametric design for facade is the application of computational strategies to the design process. While designers traditionally rely on intuition and experience to solve design problems, computational design aims to enhance that process by encoding design decisions using a computer language. The result is a graphic representation of the steps required to achieve the end design of the facade. This allows collaborations with the architects wherein a facade design consultancy can be provided which focuses on parametric design methods that allow a wide range of design possibilities and fabrication options.

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Workflow for Parametric Facades

Today, designers come up with complex shapes and forms, which can be attained with a multitude of software and methods. Although the pace of change in technology is on an all-time high in this decade and we must increase the rate of innovation as we are running on a treadmill of time, methods remain the same with new software packages allowing advancement in functionality. It is gaining popularity amongst designers across the globe as it can allow one to extend their creative canvases to vast avenues. Parametric workflow allows designers to take an objective and informed decisions during the process of design, where every geometry and information is associated with the building through parameters that can be controlled to produce a multitude of outputs and options. Analysis and fabrication data can also be linked in the workflow along with key parameters such as material quantities and costing.

Culture of Collaboration

Having expertise in Computational Design, rat[LAB] Studio often delves into collaborative projects to assist in Façade Design and Building Skin development with other Designers and Architects by taking up the scope of Parametric Design Consultants. Additionally, the studio also undertakes independent Façade Design projects by using advanced methods of designing through an algorithmic workflow. One of the on going visionary projects by the studio is a collaboration with Architects Urban Zen, Hyderabad for a corporate office. The façade is quite complex as a mix of flat, single curves and double curves surfaces that define the vertical fins that blend to form horizontal members. The studio used 3D printing technology to create prototypes of the façade for creating an efficient structural and façade system and choosing the most appropriate cladding system.

As Parametric Design Consultants, we often come across challenging situations where the Architects bring in a ‘visual’ vision for us to parametrically rationalise, optimise and make it functional as per local context scenarios. We attempt to drive intelligence in the design system without controlling the design vision of the collaborating Architects who are our patrons in the project ecosystem.

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Geometry is rationalized to break the complex double curvature form into simple ruled geometries that can be fabricated using a blend of high-tech and low-tech construction systems. 3D Printing is used as a prototyping method to rationalize geometry of the facade as a part of the design process.

Additionally, the studio also undertakes independent Façade Design projects by using advanced methods of designing through an algorithmic workflow. One of the recent projects by the studio was a Form and Skin development for a skyscraper project in Hong Kong where Parametric Design Methods were used to design an environmentally conscious adaptive[skin] that could create a breathing effect using sustainable design strategies guided by the studio. The studio won the competition project and was awarded the First Prize in the International Competition for design of Skyscraper.

rat[LAB] was invited to collaborate on this project to facilitate on the design using Parametric Design & Computational Techniques involving Form Finding Strategies, Construction Strategies, Facade & Building Skin Design and Parametric Workflow. An algorithmic process of designing has been followed through creating a differentiated array of a hexagonal floor plate that variably changes scale based on environmental criteria, functional aspects, structural logics as well as aesthetic parameters. A central core holds the two towers that rises about 290m. above Ground Level carrying a twisting form encapsulated by a triangulated exoskeleton leaving clear floor plates for functional distribution. The rotational and scaling aspects of floor plates around the central core creates a folding form that grows high to create an amorphous building form with external vertical courts and atriums that spiral along the towers in two different directions as per climatic aspects. A subtle rotation of floor plates that start from 0 Degree at Ground Level to 90 Degree at the Top, is designed clockwise and anticlockwise in Tower A and Tower B, looking at shadow studies, solar insolation, local and global wind movements and structural logics.

A multi-objective optimization is carried out to create a novel form where two dynamic looking towers connect at three distinct levels with structural bridges formed by triangulated trusses that stretch out from triangulated exoskeleton. While 70% of Facade panels are static and their size determine the amount of light and heat on the building facade, 30% of panels are designed as Kinetic Panels to control the amount of daylight and solar insolation required by the building for different parts of the day and seasons.