Why Adaptivity

"When one talks about adaptation, one talks about accepting the reality of these impacts and putting in place technological and policy measures by which we're able to manage the problem. That's absolutely essential."
—Nobel Prize winner Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Adaptation is essential for survival and success: This is as true for our buildings as it is for all other aspects of our lives.

Because a building is traditionally conceived as a rigid object, its configuration is often fixed once design choices are made. This model, however, is inflexible, unresponsive, and unsustainable. Today buildings represent the single largest contributor to carbon output in the United States; their owners and occupants pay the price in higher energy costs and reduced comfort and flexibility

Rising energy demands, along with the lack of design solutions that sufficiently respond to the changes in our environment, may well be the defining problems of our century. Adaptation is the means by which we can begin to address these daunting challenges and enter a new era of innovation.

A New Era of Innovation

We believe the time has come to make the conceptual and practical leap to "adaptive" buildings, which can attune their performance, in real time, to environmental changes.

The logic is compelling: Buildings with adaptive systems use less energy, offer more occupant comfort, and feature better overall space efficiency than static buildings do.

The ability to implement adaptive systems stems from a series of technological advances over the last 10 years. Production costs of motorized systems have dropped significantly, and standardization within the automation industry has helped to improve system reliability. Microprocessor technology continues to move in the direction of low cost, low power, small-form-factor design implementations, allowing for a greater distribution of embedded network intelligence. Combining these advances with diverse computational tools, sensors, and environmental modeling allows us to create truly dynamic and responsive environments.

Together, these technological advances allow us to create buildings that are self-optimizing, rather than merely best-fit compromises.

Adaptivity In Action

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Adaptive buildings respond to environmental changes to meet desired conditions and performance criteria

Today adaptive systems are widely used for daylight control. When applied to the interior or exterior of buildings, motorized shades, blinds, and louvers can intelligently absorb or reject radiant energy, decrease heating and cooling system loads, and employ natural daylight to reduce the need for artificial lighting.

Despite these advances, performance-based technologies have barely lived up to their full potential. For example, the physical design of shading devices has remained largely unchanged for many decades; further improvement is necessary to significantly improve performance. Adaptive-building responses to environmental parameters such as wind, precipitation, and conductive heat (as opposed to radiant heat) are all ripe for development.

The Adaptive Building Initiative

Simons Center for Geometry & Physics, Stony Brook University, New York, USA

The Adaptive Building Initiative brings together designers and engineers to create the next generation of adaptive systems for architectural use. We work directly with project teams to find appropriate solutions. Our approach is practical, hands-on, and comprehensive. We start with projects in the conceptual phase and carry them through to final installation.

ABI also performs in-house research and development efforts to create new technologies and improve upon its service offerings. These continuing efforts help us stay at the forefront of building technologies in order to enable our clients to realize the great potential of adaptivity.