REDUCTION OF THERMAL LOADS BY BIOMIMETIC RESPONSIVE SKINS

Previous studies proved that building skins are mostly responsible for the energy consumed inside the buildings. Recently, new perspectives for building skins appeared; some of them were enhancing their responsiveness to the surrounding environment. Biomimicry is also one of the innovative approaches that the world starts to head for, to find ideas and solutions for humans’ problems through mechanisms and materials found in nature. This paper is seeking to integrate biomimetic characteristics of plants into the design of a responsive skin as a way to reduce thermal loads in office buildings by adjusting the model and testing variables using Grasshopper as a simulation program to reach the best result. The study took place in Giza, Egypt, for a medium-sized office building consisting of 3 levels of open spaces with an area of 1,665 m 2 for each floor. Results showed That the proposed skin could decrease the thermal loads, especially cooling loads with an 8% reduction.