Air Flow(er)

Imagine a building that behaves like a flower, with the “petals” on its surface opening wide in the sunlight. In the vision of the 29-year-old designer Andrew Payne, those petals are valves triggered by changing temperatures, and their opening and closing regulate airflow and interior temperatures—without electri­­city. The key to his energy-independent ventilation system, called Air Flow(er), is shape-memory alloy, a composite of nickel and titanium that has the unique property of contracting as it heats up and relaxing again when it cools down.

“The idea was to use it as a vertical or a horizontal skin to lessen the demand on traditional HVAC systems,” Payne says. “It could also be used to retrofit existing buildings to make them more efficient. This is, to some extent, the opposite of wea­therization, which means keeping things tight. But in hot communities, I think it would really take off.” Payne’s concept depends on getting the material to open fully at 80 degrees and shut tightly at 60 degrees, which could be achieved by tweaking the composition by less than 1 percent. Fortunately, he says, “Manufacturers are definitely willing and able to modify the recipe.”