Knitted architecture and wind: Designing loosely fitted architectural textiles for interaction with wind

Sammanfattning: Utilising the textile’s ability to adapt to external forces such as the wind could lead to the creation of new design expressions and functional features within architecture. Prompted by architectural potentials of textiles deliberately designed to move and flex, this thesis aims to explore and demonstrate how such knitted textiles could contribute to enriched aesthetic expression and improved performance of architectural elements placed in windy environments. A key part of the research is the interaction of textile and wind, viewing it as a source of energy or force that could be used, diffused, or directed - to enrich and create a more comfortable urban environment. As such, this work is positioned at the intersection of three knowledge areas: architectural design, knitted textile design, and wind engineering. A research by design approach is used to conduct quantitative and qualitative investigations with design prototypes as main vehicles of inquiry. Specifically, a hybrid method of design-based research is applied, involving artistic making and qualitative evaluations of the design prototypes as well as scientific methods featuring quantitative textile performance measurements. Both physical and digital prototypes are utilised to probe the geometric expressions of knitted textiles and investigate the performative features of different knitted textile designs in relation to their wind reduction capacity. The main finding from the quantitative part of the study, encompassing wind tunnel experiments, is that loosely fitted knitted structures efficiently reduce wind velocities and high-energy eddies. Along with this, the qualitative investigations, involving a series of diversely designed knitted architectural prototypes, show that knitted textiles can be applied to design three-dimensional architectural structures that are aesthetically diverse and have a dynamic, ever-changing expression. Finally, the developed framework for designing loosely fitted textiles for interaction with wind seeks to provide architects with guidance concerning important aspects of such design, including the workflows, tools, and evaluation methods.