Metal that breathes
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0:01 - 0:04I was one of those kids that, every time I got in the car,
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0:04 - 0:07I basically had to roll down the window.
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0:07 - 0:11It was usually too hot, too stuffy or just too smelly,
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0:11 - 0:14and my father would not let us use the air conditioner.
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0:14 - 0:16He said that it would overheat the engine.
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0:16 - 0:18And you might remember, some of you,
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0:18 - 0:20how the cars were back then, and it was
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0:20 - 0:22a common problem of overheating.
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0:22 - 0:26But it was also the signal that capped the use,
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0:26 - 0:31or overuse, of energy-consuming devices.
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0:31 - 0:34Things have changed now. We have cars that we take across country.
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0:34 - 0:37We blast the air conditioning the entire way,
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0:37 - 0:38and we never experience overheating.
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0:38 - 0:41So there's no more signal for us to tell us to stop.
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0:41 - 0:47Great, right? Well, we have similar problems in buildings.
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0:47 - 0:51In the past, before air conditioning, we had thick walls.
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0:51 - 0:53The thick walls are great for insulation. It keeps the interior
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0:53 - 0:57very cool during the summertime, and warm during the wintertime,
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0:57 - 0:59and the small windows were also very good because
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0:59 - 1:02it limited the amount of temperature transfer
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1:02 - 1:04between the interior and exterior.
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1:04 - 1:08Then in about the 1930s, with the advent of plate glass,
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1:08 - 1:11rolled steel and mass production, we were able
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1:11 - 1:15to make floor-to-ceiling windows and unobstructed views,
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1:15 - 1:19and with that came the irreversible reliance on
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1:19 - 1:25mechanical air conditioning to cool our solar-heated spaces.
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1:25 - 1:28Over time, the buildings got taller and bigger,
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1:28 - 1:31our engineering even better, so that the mechanical systems
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1:31 - 1:35were massive. They require a huge amount of energy.
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1:35 - 1:38They give off a lot of heat into the atmosphere,
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1:38 - 1:41and for some of you may understand the heat island effect
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1:41 - 1:44in cities, where the urban areas are much more warm
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1:44 - 1:47than the adjacent rural areas,
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1:47 - 1:51but we also have problems that, when we lose power,
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1:51 - 1:53we can't open a window here, and so
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1:53 - 1:56the buildings are uninhabitable and have to be made vacant
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1:56 - 2:00until that air conditioning system can start up again.
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2:00 - 2:04Even worse, with our intention of trying to make buildings
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2:04 - 2:09move towards a net-zero energy state, we can't do it
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2:09 - 2:11just by making mechanical systems more and more efficient.
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2:11 - 2:15We need to look for something else, and we've gotten ourselves a little bit into a rut.
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2:15 - 2:19So what do we do here? How do we pull ourselves and dig us
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2:19 - 2:22out of this hole that we've dug?
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2:22 - 2:25If we look at biology, and many of you probably don't know,
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2:25 - 2:29I was a biology major before I went into architecture,
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2:29 - 2:33the human skin is the organ that naturally regulates
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2:33 - 2:36the temperature in the body, and it's a fantastic thing.
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2:36 - 2:39That's the first line of defense for the body.
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2:39 - 2:42It has pores, it has sweat glands, it has all these things
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2:42 - 2:46that work together very dynamically and very efficiently,
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2:46 - 2:48and so what I propose is that our building skins
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2:48 - 2:52should be more similar to human skin,
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2:52 - 2:56and by doing so can be much more dynamic, responsive
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2:56 - 2:59and differentiated, depending on where it is.
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2:59 - 3:01And this gets me back to my research.
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3:01 - 3:06What I proposed first doing is looking at a different material palette to do that.
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3:06 - 3:09I presently, or currently, work with smart materials,
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3:09 - 3:11and a smart thermo-bimetal.
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3:11 - 3:14First of all, I guess we call it smart because it requires
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3:14 - 3:17no controls and it requires no energy,
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3:17 - 3:19and that's a very big deal for architecture.
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3:19 - 3:22What it is, it's a lamination of two different metals together.
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3:22 - 3:26You can see that here by the different reflection on this side.
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3:26 - 3:30And because it has two different coefficients of expansion,
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3:30 - 3:33when heated, one side will expand faster than the other
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3:33 - 3:36and result in a curling action.
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3:36 - 3:40So in early prototypes I built these surfaces to try to see
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3:40 - 3:44how the curl would react to temperature and possibly allow
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3:44 - 3:47air to ventilate through the system,
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3:47 - 3:51and in other prototypes did surfaces where the multiplicity
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3:51 - 3:53of having these strips together can try to make
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3:53 - 3:57bigger movement happen when also heated,
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3:57 - 4:01and currently have this installation at the Materials & Applications gallery
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4:01 - 4:05in Silver Lake, close by, and it's there until August, if you want to see it.
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4:05 - 4:08It's called "Bloom," and the surface is made completely
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4:08 - 4:12out of thermo-bimetal, and its intention is to make this canopy
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4:12 - 4:15that does two things. One, it's a sun-shading device, so that
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4:15 - 4:19when the sun hits the surface, it constricts the amount of sun passing through,
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4:19 - 4:23and in other areas, it's a ventilating system,
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4:23 - 4:25so that hot, trapped air underneath can actually
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4:25 - 4:29move through and out when necessary.
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4:29 - 4:33You can see here in this time-lapse video that the sun,
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4:33 - 4:36as it moves across the surface, as well as the shade,
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4:36 - 4:38each of the tiles moves individually.
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4:38 - 4:41Keep in mind, with the digital technology that we have today,
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4:41 - 4:44this thing was made out of about 14,000 pieces
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4:44 - 4:48and there's no two pieces alike at all. Every single one is different.
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4:48 - 4:51And the great thing with that is the fact that we can calibrate
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4:51 - 4:55each one to be very, very specific to its location,
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4:55 - 5:00to the angle of the sun, and also how the thing actually curls.
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5:00 - 5:03So this kind of proof of concept project
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5:03 - 5:05has a lot of implications
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5:05 - 5:08to actual future application in architecture,
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5:08 - 5:11and in this case, here you see a house,
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5:11 - 5:13that's for a developer in China,
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5:13 - 5:16and it's actually a four-story glass box.
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5:16 - 5:20It's still with that glass box because we still want that visual access,
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5:20 - 5:24but now it's sheathed with this thermo-bimetal layer,
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5:24 - 5:26it's a screen that goes around it, and that layer can actually
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5:26 - 5:30open and close as that sun moves around on that surface.
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5:30 - 5:35In addition to that, it can also screen areas for privacy,
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5:35 - 5:37so that it can differentiate from some of the public areas
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5:37 - 5:40in the space during different times of day.
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5:40 - 5:43And what it basically implies is that, in houses now,
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5:43 - 5:46we don't need drapes or shutters or blinds anymore
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5:46 - 5:49because we can sheath the building with these things,
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5:49 - 5:54as well as control the amount of air conditioning you need inside that building.
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5:54 - 5:58I'm also looking at trying to develop some building components for the market,
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5:58 - 6:00and so here you see a pretty typical
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6:00 - 6:05double-glazed window panel, and in that panel,
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6:05 - 6:08between those two pieces of glass, that double-glazing,
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6:08 - 6:10I'm trying to work on making
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6:10 - 6:12a thermo-bimetal pattern system
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6:12 - 6:15so that when the sun hits that outside layer
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6:15 - 6:19and heats that interior cavity, that thermo-bimetal
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6:19 - 6:22will begin to curl, and what actually will happen then
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6:22 - 6:24is it'll start to block out the sun
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6:24 - 6:26in certain areas of the building,
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6:26 - 6:28and totally, if necessary.
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6:28 - 6:31And so you can imagine, even in this application, that
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6:31 - 6:33in a high-rise building where the panel systems go
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6:33 - 6:38from floor to floor up to 30, 40 floors, the entire surface
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6:38 - 6:40could be differentiated at different times of day
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6:40 - 6:46depending on how that sun moves across and hits that surface.
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6:46 - 6:49And these are some later studies that I'm working on
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6:49 - 6:51right now that are on the boards, where you can see,
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6:51 - 6:54in the bottom right-hand corner, with the red, it's actually
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6:54 - 6:56smaller pieces of thermometal, and it's actually going to,
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6:56 - 7:02we're trying to make it move like cilia or eyelashes.
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7:02 - 7:04This last project is also of components.
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7:04 - 7:08The influence -- and if you have noticed, one of my
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7:08 - 7:12spheres of influence is biology -- is from a grasshopper.
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7:12 - 7:14And grasshoppers have a different kind of breathing system.
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7:14 - 7:18They breathe through holes in their sides called spiracles,
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7:18 - 7:21and they bring the air through and it moves through their system to cool them down,
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7:21 - 7:24and so in this project, I'm trying to look at how we can
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7:24 - 7:27consider that in architecture too, how we can bring
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7:27 - 7:29air through holes in the sides of a building.
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7:29 - 7:32And so you see here some early studies of blocks,
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7:32 - 7:35where those holes are actually coming through,
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7:35 - 7:39and this is before the thermo-bimetal is applied,
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7:39 - 7:41and this is after the bimetal is applied. Sorry, it's a little
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7:41 - 7:44hard to see, but on the surfaces, you can see these red arrows.
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7:44 - 7:48On the left, it's when it's cold and the thermo-bimetal
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7:48 - 7:51is flat so it will constrict air from passing through the blocks,
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7:51 - 7:53and on the right, the thermo-bimetal curls
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7:53 - 7:57and allows that air to pass through, so those are two different
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7:57 - 7:59components that I'm working on, and again,
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7:59 - 8:01it's a completely different thing, because you can imagine
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8:01 - 8:04that air could potentially be coming through the walls
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8:04 - 8:07instead of opening windows.
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8:07 - 8:09So I want to leave you with one last impression about
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8:09 - 8:14the project, or this kind of work and using smart materials.
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8:14 - 8:17When you're tired of opening and closing those blinds
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8:17 - 8:20day after day, when you're on vacation
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8:20 - 8:24and there's no one there on the weekends to be turning off and on the controls,
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8:24 - 8:26or when there's a power outage, and you have
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8:26 - 8:29no electricity to rely on, these thermo-bimetals
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8:29 - 8:33will still be working tirelessly, efficiently
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8:33 - 8:37and endlessly. Thank you. (Applause)
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8:37 - 8:39(Applause)
- Title:
- Metal that breathes
- Speaker:
- Doris Kim Sung
- Description:
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Modern buildings with floor-to-ceiling windows give spectacular views, but they require a lot of energy to cool. Doris Kim Sung works with thermo-bimetals, smart materials that act more like human skin, dynamically and responsively, and can shade a room from sun and self-ventilate.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 08:59
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Metal that breathes | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Metal that breathes | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Metal that breathes | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Metal that breathes | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Metal that breathes | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Metal that breathes | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Metal that breathes | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Metal that breathes |