Hygro Skin

The Pavilion explores a novel mode of climate-responsive architecture. While most attempts towards environmental responsiveness heavily rely on elaborate technical equipment superimposed on otherwise inert material constructs, this project uses the responsive capacity of the material itself. The dimensional instability of wood in relation to moisture content is employed to construct a meteorosensitive architectural skin that autonomously opens and closes in response to weather changes but neither requires the supply of operational energy nor any kind of mechanical or electronic control. Here, the material structure itself is the machine.