What if the wind could help protect a building from overheating – while bringing the façade to life?
Flutter Façade is a secondary façade system developed to reduce solar heat gain on the existing modular housing units. Instead of using a conventional fixed shading layer, the students created a field of lightweight, individually moving elements inspired by tree leaves.
The small “shingles” are made from recycled plastic and vacuum-formed into shape. Mounted on horizontal rods, each element is balanced with a small weight, allowing it to respond freely to the wind. The result is a façade that is never completely still: the elements gently flutter, creating changing patterns of light and shadow while providing passive solar protection.
The supporting system was designed as a modular timber frame that can be prefabricated, stacked for transportation and attached to the existing building. Particular attention was also given to the realities of the COA locations: the system needs to be robust, vandal-resistant and positioned so that the moving elements remain out of reach.
What we especially like about the project is that performance becomes visible. Shading is not treated simply as a technical necessity, but as an opportunity to give otherwise repetitive modular buildings a changing and playful identity.
Passive shading. Wind-driven movement. A simple façade element that turns environmental forces into architecture.
Students: Irene Hooft, Neza Jenko, Jirre Luikinga, Nektarios Papachristou, Meike Veldhuis
Supervisors: Marcel Bilow, Nadia Remmerswaal, Ate Snijder and Govert Flint
facadeworld 