With its residential building project Animated Apertures, B+U reinvents the shape of apertures as well as their outline and role, while simultaneously attempting to find an innovative way to design a sustainable building.
Making use of the potential of energy exchanges that occur between the natural environment and the building, the architects envisaged the windows as 3D objects with slack contours expressing these symbiotic and live relations. Constructed out of innovative composite materials that are resistant to flexion without the addition of any mechanical pieces, the window frames are fitted with long flexible rods that react to natural forces such as sunshine and wind, and enable the control of light and shade. Pools on certain balconies also participate in the building’s regulation system.
Turned towards the ground, the sky, the horizon or specific urban sites, the large, varied apertures each offer unique perspectives. As elements of the clearly marked transition between indoors and outdoors, they renew the experience of the space from within each apartment and from outside the building, which is similar to a supple form whose indeterminate silhouette seems to be in constant motion.
Architect: B+U- Herwig Baumgartner, Scott Uriu
Design Principals: Herwig Baumgartner, Scott Uriu
Project Team: Nema Ashjaee (lead), Aaron Ryan, Jack Gaumer, Ricardo Lledo, Anthony Morey
