0:00:00.737,0:00:04.088
I was one of those kids that, every time I got in the car,

0:00:04.088,0:00:07.031
I basically had to roll down the window.

0:00:07.031,0:00:11.243
It was usually too hot, too stuffy or just too smelly,

0:00:11.243,0:00:13.597
and my father would not let us use the air conditioner.

0:00:13.597,0:00:16.354
He said that it would overheat the engine.

0:00:16.354,0:00:18.002
And you might remember, some of you,

0:00:18.002,0:00:19.902
how the cars were back then, and it was

0:00:19.902,0:00:22.268
a common problem of overheating.

0:00:22.268,0:00:26.288
But it was also the signal that capped the use,

0:00:26.288,0:00:30.710
or overuse, of energy-consuming devices.

0:00:30.710,0:00:33.749
Things have changed now. We have cars that we take across country.

0:00:33.749,0:00:36.910
We blast the air conditioning the entire way,

0:00:36.910,0:00:38.486
and we never experience overheating.

0:00:38.486,0:00:41.473
So there's no more signal for us to tell us to stop.

0:00:41.473,0:00:47.091
Great, right? Well, we have similar problems in buildings.

0:00:47.091,0:00:50.557
In the past, before air conditioning, we had thick walls.

0:00:50.557,0:00:53.236
The thick walls are great for insulation. It keeps the interior

0:00:53.236,0:00:56.754
very cool during the summertime, and warm during the wintertime,

0:00:56.754,0:00:59.154
and the small windows were also very good because

0:00:59.154,0:01:01.745
it limited the amount of temperature transfer

0:01:01.745,0:01:04.212
between the interior and exterior.

0:01:04.212,0:01:08.084
Then in about the 1930s, with the advent of plate glass,

0:01:08.084,0:01:11.480
rolled steel and mass production, we were able

0:01:11.480,0:01:14.930
to make floor-to-ceiling windows and unobstructed views,

0:01:14.930,0:01:18.656
and with that came the irreversible reliance on

0:01:18.656,0:01:25.237
mechanical air conditioning to cool our solar-heated spaces.

0:01:25.237,0:01:28.341
Over time, the buildings got taller and bigger,

0:01:28.341,0:01:30.982
our engineering even better, so that the mechanical systems

0:01:30.982,0:01:34.856
were massive. They require a huge amount of energy.

0:01:34.856,0:01:37.615
They give off a lot of heat into the atmosphere,

0:01:37.615,0:01:40.815
and for some of you may understand the heat island effect

0:01:40.815,0:01:44.325
in cities, where the urban areas are much more warm

0:01:44.325,0:01:47.275
than the adjacent rural areas,

0:01:47.275,0:01:50.529
but we also have problems that, when we lose power,

0:01:50.529,0:01:53.290
we can't open a window here, and so

0:01:53.290,0:01:56.104
the buildings are uninhabitable and have to be made vacant

0:01:56.104,0:01:59.752
until that air conditioning system can start up again.

0:01:59.752,0:02:03.807
Even worse, with our intention of trying to make buildings

0:02:03.807,0:02:08.792
move towards a net-zero energy state, we can't do it

0:02:08.792,0:02:11.159
just by making mechanical systems more and more efficient.

0:02:11.159,0:02:14.937
We need to look for something else, and we've gotten ourselves a little bit into a rut.

0:02:14.937,0:02:19.188
So what do we do here? How do we pull ourselves and dig us

0:02:19.188,0:02:22.039
out of this hole that we've dug?

0:02:22.039,0:02:24.948
If we look at biology, and many of you probably don't know,

0:02:24.948,0:02:28.604
I was a biology major before I went into architecture,

0:02:28.604,0:02:32.993
the human skin is the organ that naturally regulates

0:02:32.993,0:02:36.429
the temperature in the body, and it's a fantastic thing.

0:02:36.429,0:02:39.044
That's the first line of defense for the body.

0:02:39.044,0:02:42.253
It has pores, it has sweat glands, it has all these things

0:02:42.253,0:02:45.671
that work together very dynamically and very efficiently,

0:02:45.671,0:02:48.175
and so what I propose is that our building skins

0:02:48.175,0:02:51.824
should be more similar to human skin,

0:02:51.824,0:02:55.936
and by doing so can be much more dynamic, responsive

0:02:55.936,0:02:59.192
and differentiated, depending on where it is.

0:02:59.192,0:03:01.125
And this gets me back to my research.

0:03:01.125,0:03:06.435
What I proposed first doing is looking at a different material palette to do that.

0:03:06.435,0:03:09.346
I presently, or currently, work with smart materials,

0:03:09.346,0:03:11.065
and a smart thermo-bimetal.

0:03:11.065,0:03:13.977
First of all, I guess we call it smart because it requires

0:03:13.977,0:03:16.707
no controls and it requires no energy,

0:03:16.707,0:03:19.370
and that's a very big deal for architecture.

0:03:19.370,0:03:22.184
What it is, it's a lamination of two different metals together.

0:03:22.184,0:03:26.058
You can see that here by the different reflection on this side.

0:03:26.058,0:03:29.533
And because it has two different coefficients of expansion,

0:03:29.533,0:03:32.830
when heated, one side will expand faster than the other

0:03:32.830,0:03:36.367
and result in a curling action.

0:03:36.367,0:03:40.073
So in early prototypes I built these surfaces to try to see

0:03:40.073,0:03:44.266
how the curl would react to temperature and possibly allow

0:03:44.266,0:03:47.371
air to ventilate through the system,

0:03:47.371,0:03:50.600
and in other prototypes did surfaces where the multiplicity

0:03:50.600,0:03:53.081
of having these strips together can try to make

0:03:53.081,0:03:57.155
bigger movement happen when also heated,

0:03:57.155,0:04:01.219
and currently have this installation at the Materials & Applications gallery

0:04:01.219,0:04:04.705
in Silver Lake, close by, and it's there until August, if you want to see it.

0:04:04.705,0:04:07.603
It's called "Bloom," and the surface is made completely

0:04:07.603,0:04:11.643
out of thermo-bimetal, and its intention is to make this canopy

0:04:11.643,0:04:15.460
that does two things. One, it's a sun-shading device, so that

0:04:15.460,0:04:19.470
when the sun hits the surface, it constricts the amount of sun passing through,

0:04:19.470,0:04:22.839
and in other areas, it's a ventilating system,

0:04:22.839,0:04:24.992
so that hot, trapped air underneath can actually

0:04:24.992,0:04:28.870
move through and out when necessary.

0:04:28.870,0:04:33.001
You can see here in this time-lapse video that the sun,

0:04:33.001,0:04:35.747
as it moves across the surface, as well as the shade,

0:04:35.747,0:04:38.223
each of the tiles moves individually.

0:04:38.223,0:04:40.735
Keep in mind, with the digital technology that we have today,

0:04:40.735,0:04:43.748
this thing was made out of about 14,000 pieces

0:04:43.748,0:04:48.477
and there's no two pieces alike at all. Every single one is different.

0:04:48.477,0:04:50.989
And the great thing with that is the fact that we can calibrate

0:04:50.989,0:04:54.988
each one to be very, very specific to its location,

0:04:54.988,0:04:59.934
to the angle of the sun, and also how the thing actually curls.

0:04:59.934,0:05:02.740
So this kind of proof of concept project

0:05:02.740,0:05:04.704
has a lot of implications

0:05:04.704,0:05:08.404
to actual future application in architecture,

0:05:08.404,0:05:10.909
and in this case, here you see a house,

0:05:10.909,0:05:13.342
that's for a developer in China,

0:05:13.342,0:05:16.086
and it's actually a four-story glass box.

0:05:16.086,0:05:19.923
It's still with that glass box because we still want that visual access,

0:05:19.923,0:05:23.805
but now it's sheathed with this thermo-bimetal layer,

0:05:23.805,0:05:26.270
it's a screen that goes around it, and that layer can actually

0:05:26.270,0:05:30.298
open and close as that sun moves around on that surface.

0:05:30.298,0:05:34.860
In addition to that, it can also screen areas for privacy,

0:05:34.860,0:05:37.156
so that it can differentiate from some of the public areas

0:05:37.156,0:05:39.748
in the space during different times of day.

0:05:39.748,0:05:43.011
And what it basically implies is that, in houses now,

0:05:43.011,0:05:46.428
we don't need drapes or shutters or blinds anymore

0:05:46.428,0:05:48.595
because we can sheath the building with these things,

0:05:48.595,0:05:54.162
as well as control the amount of air conditioning you need inside that building.

0:05:54.162,0:05:57.551
I'm also looking at trying to develop some building components for the market,

0:05:57.551,0:06:00.040
and so here you see a pretty typical

0:06:00.040,0:06:04.771
double-glazed window panel, and in that panel,

0:06:04.771,0:06:07.698
between those two pieces of glass, that double-glazing,

0:06:07.698,0:06:09.875
I'm trying to work on making

0:06:09.875,0:06:11.944
a thermo-bimetal pattern system

0:06:11.944,0:06:14.616
so that when the sun hits that outside layer

0:06:14.616,0:06:19.260
and heats that interior cavity, that thermo-bimetal

0:06:19.260,0:06:22.036
will begin to curl, and what actually will happen then

0:06:22.036,0:06:24.339
is it'll start to block out the sun

0:06:24.339,0:06:26.213
in certain areas of the building,

0:06:26.213,0:06:28.154
and totally, if necessary.

0:06:28.154,0:06:30.662
And so you can imagine, even in this application, that

0:06:30.662,0:06:33.339
in a high-rise building where the panel systems go

0:06:33.339,0:06:38.106
from floor to floor up to 30, 40 floors, the entire surface

0:06:38.106,0:06:40.296
could be differentiated at different times of day

0:06:40.296,0:06:45.755
depending on how that sun moves across and hits that surface.

0:06:45.755,0:06:48.574
And these are some later studies that I'm working on

0:06:48.574,0:06:50.838
right now that are on the boards, where you can see,

0:06:50.838,0:06:54.179
in the bottom right-hand corner, with the red, it's actually

0:06:54.179,0:06:56.457
smaller pieces of thermometal, and it's actually going to,

0:06:56.457,0:07:01.703
we're trying to make it move like cilia or eyelashes.

0:07:01.703,0:07:04.185
This last project is also of components.

0:07:04.185,0:07:08.042
The influence -- and if you have noticed, one of my

0:07:08.042,0:07:11.618
spheres of influence is biology -- is from a grasshopper.

0:07:11.618,0:07:14.225
And grasshoppers have a different kind of breathing system.

0:07:14.225,0:07:17.627
They breathe through holes in their sides called spiracles,

0:07:17.627,0:07:21.117
and they bring the air through and it moves through their system to cool them down,

0:07:21.117,0:07:24.499
and so in this project, I'm trying to look at how we can

0:07:24.499,0:07:26.681
consider that in architecture too, how we can bring

0:07:26.681,0:07:29.347
air through holes in the sides of a building.

0:07:29.347,0:07:32.320
And so you see here some early studies of blocks,

0:07:32.320,0:07:34.833
where those holes are actually coming through,

0:07:34.833,0:07:38.553
and this is before the thermo-bimetal is applied,

0:07:38.553,0:07:41.252
and this is after the bimetal is applied. Sorry, it's a little

0:07:41.252,0:07:44.460
hard to see, but on the surfaces, you can see these red arrows.

0:07:44.460,0:07:47.638
On the left, it's when it's cold and the thermo-bimetal

0:07:47.638,0:07:51.240
is flat so it will constrict air from passing through the blocks,

0:07:51.240,0:07:53.280
and on the right, the thermo-bimetal curls

0:07:53.280,0:07:56.826
and allows that air to pass through, so those are two different

0:07:56.826,0:07:58.642
components that I'm working on, and again,

0:07:58.642,0:08:00.954
it's a completely different thing, because you can imagine

0:08:00.954,0:08:03.681
that air could potentially be coming through the walls

0:08:03.681,0:08:06.562
instead of opening windows.

0:08:06.562,0:08:09.250
So I want to leave you with one last impression about

0:08:09.250,0:08:13.630
the project, or this kind of work and using smart materials.

0:08:13.630,0:08:16.810
When you're tired of opening and closing those blinds

0:08:16.810,0:08:19.803
day after day, when you're on vacation

0:08:19.803,0:08:23.842
and there's no one there on the weekends to be turning off and on the controls,

0:08:23.842,0:08:26.197
or when there's a power outage, and you have

0:08:26.197,0:08:29.218
no electricity to rely on, these thermo-bimetals

0:08:29.218,0:08:33.216
will still be working tirelessly, efficiently

0:08:33.216,0:08:36.522
and endlessly. Thank you. (Applause)

0:08:36.522,0:08:39.314
(Applause)