Feasibility Study of Implementing a Bio-Inspired Building Envelope for Energy Harvesting and Visual Comfort Improvement

Abstract

A combination of sustainable architecture and renewable energy harvesting strategies are among promising path to sustainable development in construction sectors. This idea can be used on the building site and the building shell and on the scale of the building itself, which is exposed to renewable energy such as solar energy. This article aimed to analyze an adaptive façade inspired by insects’ eyes geometrical arrangement and to consider several less-attended issues, in current literature, in the process of adaptive facade design. First, there was a lack of economic objectives in adaptive façade optimization. Second, few pieces of researches attempted to include the space utility, and occupants’ activities in spaces while configuring adaptive façades towards comfort and building energy efficiency. Third, an integration of the previous items into solar water heaters was not taken into consideration through parametric approaches and Feresnel lenses materials while designing an adaptive façade for comfort and energy harvesting objectives. Given these, a parametric code was used for shaping the geometry, environmental analysis, and simulations for visual comfort consideration, heat gain, and economic analysis. Finally, after a multi-objective optimization for visual comfort, energy harvesting, and economic considerations, the best possible solution were proposed both in a kinetic and static mode. The results showed that there was 361.5 MWh annual energy harvesting potential using the proposed façade, while in comparison to the current condition of the façade, there was respectively 24.56, 15.04, and 18.23 times improvements in annual daylight performance in July, December, and March cases. Also, the economic analysis and the optimization showed that the payback time of the proposed system was 5.5 years.