Kinetic Facade Library
ARCH 4101 Design Studio, 1st Semester · Academic
by Clark Cheng
This project proposes a public library enclosed by a continuous, mounded shell whose surface is covered in hundreds of individually actuated facade fragments. Each fragment pivots on a rack-and-pinion mechanism, opening and closing in response to solar exposure — shading the reading spaces beneath the shell during peak sun while opening to admit daylight and ventilation as conditions change. The result is a building envelope that behaves less like a static wall and more like a responsive skin, tied directly to an energy simulation of the site's solar path.
Kinetic Facade Mechanism
Each facade fragment is driven by a simple rack-and-pinion assembly: a motor-driven pinion gear rides along a toothed rack fixed to the fragment's frame, rotating the outer panel open or closed. Multiplied across the shell's curved surface, this single mechanism produces the building's overall kinetic pattern.
Animation of the facade fragments actuating across the building's shell:
Massing & Program
The building's mounded form grew out of a sectional analysis of the library's program — stacking reading rooms, stacks, and gathering spaces beneath a single undulating datum that rises and falls with the roof shell above.
Floor Plan
Site Plan & Sections
Final Renderings
The completed design: a concrete shell library whose kinetic shading fragments crest across the roofline like scales, set within a wooded urban site.
Final Presentation
The final pin-up boards, and the assembled presentation deck:
