CATERPIE HAUS

01. MOVING LIFE .

Historically, the movement of habitat is explained as the result of disproving the essential requirements of a civilized society that a certain deficit led to. The occurrence of nomadic life was due to a barren environment, and from this, the nomads were unable to establish a settled society and therefore, they had to move from place to place, consuming the resources of the given environment by period. There are few traces of such culture in industrialized countries. The development of civilization took root and settled in the land, and the indigenous people who settled began to form society. It is a fact that no one can deny that the formation of a network of cities developed as a result of the basis for what made our society today. Therefore, the habitat has always been unconditionally regarded as having a large framework that is the most fundamental and based on the foundation work deep in the ground, and a lot of focus is always focused on the unshakable structural safety. We have been through the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th industrial eras based on this type of housing.

If so, will this type of residence continue in the near future, which is experiencing a global biological air attack in 2021?

We can imagine the change of form in what kind of progress the 5th Industrial Revolution will be. Even now, we do not need pinned space for working, studying, exercising, or hobbying. Everything is connected and accessible from internet network connection and fixed space is unnecessary anymore.

The 5th Industrial Revolution aims at the exponential speed of technological development, production volume, and economic value, which is higher than the point at which the 4th Industrial Revolution came. However, it seems that it is more focused on artificial intelligence and life technologies than before, and accordingly, it requires super-cognition and super-life. This is not without the possibility that the rapid development of the space industry, such as the collection of asteroid resources, as seen in creations, is the 5th Industrial Revolution. This is because production expands to a cosmic scale beyond the global scale. Since human activities are limited in the earth environment, space exploration is highly likely to advance rapidly through the massive development, which is the result of the 4th Industrial Revolution. This implies that a new residential style is needed in a new space, and the housing will have the potential to be re-examined as a central role for exploration and pioneering.

02.  MOVING HABITAT

The movement of habitat means that in the end, can be seen as a paradigm shift in life. If the existing dwelling was completely combined with the urban infrastructure and had a dependent property, the moving dwelling would be used as an independent entity away from the city. Each dwelling has its own centrality, and the movement it creates can be a result of necessity, different from the nomadic life caused by the deprivation of the past. In addition, the freedom of location due to the development of information and communication further supports the unspecificity of the location.

  In summary, the movement of a dwelling means that a building with individuality is not constrained by the environment and implies a variety of directions depending on the purpose of the residents.

03. THE CONCEPT

This project begins with observation of these biological movements. Movement is thought to be the biggest characteristic of living things.  The biological tissues in Mother Nature have the function of converting physical/chemical signals into the motor functions of the limbs. When changes in the natural environment occur, neural signals are converted into movements of the limbs. And such motility has a variety of ways depending on the environment for each individual. 

Movement in a well-paved city with all the infrastructure can be accomplished with minimum requirements. For example, a four-wheel drive car can go anywhere on a paved road. However, this method of movement quickly reveals its limitations even if only a small amount of unpaved soil is used. Therefore, I studied the movement methods of various living organisms and tried to apply environmentally adaptive movements to mobile housing rather than unidirectional and conditional movements.

The caterpillar has a special movement. It gains momentum through special physical movements of the whole body, not simply through rotational motion of partial joints. Crawling of the larva can change the shape and movement of the wrinkles of the skin through the expansion and contraction of the body skin. This does not mean that the entire body moves with the same physical force at once, but the movement of the force in the joint structure within the body becomes the driving force of the external movement.

Therefore, the project started with inspiration from the movement of the caterpillar. The first noticeable part of the external observation of the larval movement is the contraction and expansion movement. The larvae take a method of elongating the body when moving forward, supporting the front side, and reaping the rear part through contraction movement.

When applying these motions to the scale of a building, I thought of a method of realizing it through the intersecting joint structure of the Mainframe structures, and finally, the axis of the movement line was constructed.

04. MATERIAL ( ETFE) 

The movement of the caterpillar  is not completed simply by the physical movement of the skeleton. The caterpillar performs both the spherical joint movement and the skin surface wrinkle movement. When you put this into an architectural project, you can think of it as an elevation. Therefore, it was essential to explore the kinetic frame's thoughts and interactive elevations.

Rather than simply a material with elasticity that changes according to the movement of the skeleton, the motion of the elevation itself was also conceived to be the driving force of the building's movement. Therefore, the material was considered ETFE, a material capable of contraction and expansion by using the in and out of air. ETFE is used in construction as a material that maintains an appropriate shape by injecting air. In this project, this material is used for repetitive piston movement of air overflow and outflow, and the elevation also contracts and expands like a real muscle, contributing to the movement of the skeleton. By attaching an air injection piston, the surface repeats contraction and expansion accordingly.

ETFE Facade

05. ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

The purpose of this project is for a living unit, and the size of the use group is a family of 4, with 2 adults and 2 children as a basic structure. The interior space configuration is largely divided into a facility space and an actual living space. The power source for movement and storage and sewage tanks for its own infrastructure are different from the existing residential configuration. The machine room and the user's living space, which provide power along with independent infrastructure facilities, are woven into joints, and the space between them is organically adjusted according to the contraction and expansion movements.

Floor Plan

Longitudinal section

 

 The elevation is finished with etfe material, and acts as a real sub-power source in the form of a motion driven facade. In addition, air is filled due to the nature of the material, which plays a functional role by bringing the effect of insulation. Changes through contraction and expansion also play a role in showing the motion of the movement transparently.

 

 

 

cross section

 

ETFE Facade

 

The frame of the building is organically connected with 15 light structural bars made of aluminum forming a rotating connection at an intersection.Bars that are composed of linear elements and use joints to move each have a certain range of rotational motion, and get the driving force that moves forward with the main axis of the building frame. The main power source is an energy source through a solar generator installed on the roof, which will go beyond an eco-friendly approach to ensure its own movement in situations where infrastructure facilities are not equipped.

06. ACHIEVEMENT  

Changes in new architecture according to changes in life.

Architecture suitable for the space environment beyond the current on earth environment will have to look at human architecture from a completely different dimension so far. The root of these attempts lies in the changes and limitations of the global environment. Architecture is entirely under the influence of the environment. In the future, changes in architecture will be more influenced by environmental and climate change than by technology.

Therefore, if the existing architectural style was made as solid and solid as possible to maintain homeostasis from the environment, a method that actively responds to the required environment will be needed in the future.

The concept of space will change from the ideological or materialistic perception of space to an active interaction between humans and the environment. The core dealt with here is not housing through manipulation of the environment, and design behavior begins with how to apply it to a given environment, so liberalization in various laws and regulations related to the site is an innovation that goes beyond fixed forms. Will be.

The innovation of residential style is the innovation of individuals, society, and even cities. As the housing, which is the center of life, eventually evolves, the process of stepping off and directly selecting the environment will give you an opportunity in another environment in the future through physical interaction, leaving the concept.