A method to design kinetic planar surface with mathematical tessellation techniques

Abstract

Due to rapid change in activities on modern society in XXth century, need of adaptation has emerged, which was the necessary precondition for the rise of the concept of motion or kinetic in architecture. Kinetic architecture is a controversial interdisciplinary area between architecture and mechanisms science. Many kinetic designers and researchers usually reach transformable, deployable or foldable structures by using mechanical knowledge. However, there are not many researches that focus on the surfaces between kinetic structures. Those surfaces generally covered with flexible or flat materials. Kinetic architects, who usually deal with a particular type of the mechanism, can easily control the design of mechanism. Therefore, a method is necessary to construct a network with planar mechanisms for variable building surfaces due to the fact that it can be a problem of studying during the design process of kinetic building parts. Many questions might be a problem such as how many links should be used, what kind of joints and platform should be chosen and finally the mobility of the whole kinetic system. To design a surface has been one of the major problems for architects. Through the history, architecture has benefited from mathematics such as golden ratio, fractal geometry and tessellation. Tessellation is a kind of mathematical technique that was usually used to cover a plane without any gaps or overlaps, because of this properties, it uses to design surfaces. So, the main purpose of this study is to develop a methodology to design kinetic planar surfaces with mathematical regular tessellation technique in the light of architectural, mechanical and mathematical interdisciplinary approach.