Kinetura (www.kinetura.com) is a Belgium based design and architectural studio. Architects and Designers Xaveer Claerhout and Barbara Van Biervliet believe that objects and architecture should have the ability to transform in a physical way, depending on the needs of the moment, by using the flexibility of specific materials. The project of the Kinetower, which harvests international press recognition, shows the case.
It is Kinetura’s belief that smart materials and systems will soon revolutionize the physical appearance and the use of architecture and design. Together with innovative and strong firms, Kinetura is developing, within this large field of research, the first pragmatic adaptive products and building applications. This development towards a new kinetic design and architecture needs to be pushed by the users’ conviction and demand for adaptive products and architecture.
The concept of sustainability urges to be implemented into a larger kinetic and new architectural language. The outline and the proliferation of this new aesthetic will reinforce the necessary research, give more focus to cross-disciplinary development, speed up the R&D and lower the prices of the needed materials and components. Smart and sustainable artifacts no longer as optional and futuristic but as a matter of common sense and efficient design. Nowadays, the tools are already available to install the first adaptive systems and products depicting some outlines of a new extra dimensional aesthetic that we call: Metamorphism.
MORPHING KINETOWER With Metamorphism Kinetura tries to go back to the basics of Modernism where ‘Form Follows Function’ but we add an adaptive dimension. The way this new functional metamorphic architecture responds to its use and the environment is at the same time the expression of the architecture. The Kinetower-movie visualizes this concept (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C1sWImmvAE) : a double skin façade with flexible slats. The morphing outside layer of the building controls the amount of light that can penetrate trough the windows. At the same time the restrained light or energy can be captured to be re-used. The Kinetower as an energy-regulator. For Kinetura motion is not a goal, it is a mean to achieve multifunctional transformation. Applying motion and flexion of certain materials into the different spatial dimensions allows composed and smart materials and components to change from flexible state to rigid and vice versa. It is obvious that this approach is combined with flexible solar and display technology.
Metamorphism doesn’t want to represent nature in a mimetic way, nor its organic forms in a static way. By giving functional architecture an adaptive dimension the system itself becomes organic, sustainable and close to human nature.
