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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AIRSHADE (Sustainable Responsive Shading System)

Teaser

Summary

The shift towards sustainability in construction has had serious momentum, especially building components, which are becoming more advanced. Given this momentum, Airshade â€“ a sustainable energy free shading system that is able to respond to the sun, is a product targeting these developments.
The most unique aspect of Airshade is that it uses air rather than electricity for its operation. This means it offers an equally intelligent system for shading buildings, but does not need electrical energy for its operation.
Systems like Airshade tend to make the building industry more sustainable and less complex.

Work performed

Our research has shown that this idea is very well accepted amongst potential users and industry professionals.
However, analysis and surveys have revealed that there are some possible issues for adopting the product: current customer habits, automation and controlling, as well as the shape of the product. The first two directly relate to the smart building trend where automation and controllability plays a big role. In order to be adopted, Airshade has to have smart features that can be paired with current systems and be controlled by e.g. a smartphone. Users are less likely willing to accept an autonomous system they cannot influence directly.
One could argue that autonomous systems like Airshade that do not need any power source for their operation, are one step ahead â€“ however this is not the case in the current market. The air-powered operation makes Airshade both unique but is at the same time one of the main obstacles Airshade is encountering in the implementation process.
Addressing these issues, our technical research has produced several improvements, and/or alternatives in using and developing the product further.
Pairing Airshade with a low-energy system for actuation, and adding a manual operation would help in accepting the product.
Also one major finding is that Airshade could be more suitable when installed in areas where user intervention is irrelevant. These areas could be: staircases, atriums, arrival halls, greenhouses, and production or storage facilities.
Hybrid systems that could interact and work together with smart building systems are very likely to be adopted in contrast to a fully autonomous system.
The third issue is the shape of the final product. Airshade is applicable on various shapes and material configurations, offering many design possibilities.
These can be: blinds, louvers or customized shapes. Although the customized complex shapes are the most appealing to customers, they have high R&D cost and questionable mechanic stability on the long term.

Final results

Results have shown that adopting new technologies is hard, especially in a sector that is not prone to change. The building industry, as one of the worse in terms of CO2 emissions, needs to show more responsibility. However, proposing new solutions is not always easy. With Airshade we want to show a new way of how building elements can be conceived and have an impact in the facade domain.