Why research and innovate in architecture? In a conversation with architectural designer Jenny E. Sabin, we delve into the critical link between research and practice in architecture. Seeking the development of a new model, her team incorporates an interdisciplinary approach that introduces connections between these areas, fostering collaboration with both scientists and engineers.
Observing nature’s behavior, the proposed method integrates biological and mathematical discoveries into the design process. After undergoing a systematic testing process, these insights are applied in the project’s generative design phase to create adaptive and responsive material solutions. Analyzing her research and design strategies, we showcase how she translates research into architectural practice.
Incorporating Digital Tools for an Integrated Design
Architecture and design are currently undergoing a significant paradigm shift. Inextricably linked to emerging technologies, such as digital tools and fabrication, this shift is radically impacting the traditional design process and the role of architects, as well as how we construct and manage material systems. Through transformative technologies like 3D printing and robotics, architecture is now able to operate within an integrated scenario. For Jenny E. Sabin, the act of defining a tool path or a set of robotic maneuvers not only enables the incorporation of materiality, geometry, and patterns but also embeds them intrinsically into the design process.
For Sabin, developing a new model for conducting research across disciplinary boundaries addresses three main concerns. One pertains to the shift in how we engage with technology and the second concerns how it impacts how we design and construct within a new way of fabrication. The third relates to the need for collaborative material solutions due to the sustainability and climate crisis.
Nature-Inspired Research for Shaping Generative Design Processes
In creating a generative design process, she sees nature as a model for design. The research primarily aims to understand the processes and behaviors underlying these systems, not the translation of what might constitute an aesthetic form. By studying nature to reflect on our current paradigm and context, her work analyzes how nature’s materiality, geometry, patterns, events, and programs are intrinsically linked. Her team delves into nature to extract design models and tools that can influence future architectural designs.
One of the fundamental questions that drives my research is: How might buildings and their integrated materials systems behave more like organisms responding and adapting to local contexts? - Jenny E. Sabin
Integrating Materiality Across Every Phase of Research and Design
The entire research process is materially directed. The structure of how the research is conducted and linked to design starts with developing digital tools. These tools encompass visualizations and simulations focused on modeling behavior, alongside datasets.
The second phase involves architectural prototyping. Considering that not all biological systems are scalable, the process handles scale by incorporating materials and forms into 3D printing and robotic fabrication. In the third phase, the developed prototypes undergo evaluation based on architectural considerations and ecological building design, analyzing how the research is being translated into built structures.
We typically do not start with a particular problem to solve, but we generate problems throughout the research process. This is a different methodology, that is very much coupled with generative design. - Jenny E. Sabin
Translating Research Into Built Structures
Aside from the Research Lab at Cornell University, where she engages in fundamental research with collaborators and students, Sabin also works with her independent experimental architecture studio. This practice enables her to apply material solutions to tangible structures. To exemplify this process, we reviewed the study of structural color and the construction of a permanent pavilion.
As part of a previous research project funded by the National Science Foundation, in collaboration with material scientists, biologists, and electrical engineers, eSkin studied structural color. Unlike pigment-based coloration, structural coloring operates on the nanoscale, involving the texture and geometry of materials, as well as their interaction with light at specific wavelengths. This phenomenon can be seen in diverse natural organisms, such as the wings of the Blue Morpho butterfly or the feathers of hummingbirds.
Through the changes in pattern, compliance, geometry, and structure, the project manipulates material features including color, transparency, and opacity. Here, the color change is generated by an optical effect such as refraction or interference as opposed to a change in pigment. These colors also depend on the angle of view or one's orientation to the given material.
Working alongside material scientists and biologists, the research develops a thin-film technology material that can serve as a skin, capable of integrating into both existing buildings or new contemporary facade construction.
Bridging the gap from nano-scale to building-sized skin, the team worked with dichroic film, a 3M product, to translate and scale the same characteristics as the organic polymer the research was based on. This allowed the creation of a human-scale prototype facade unit that dynamically shifts the gradient of color, transitioning from opaque to transparent.
Running concurrently with the fundamental research, the practice received a commission from the College of Human Ecology to build a permanent pavilion structure on the Cornell Campus. Enhancing the intersections between research and practice, Polyform allowed the team to apply their research on structural color within an urban campus scale.
For Jenny E. Sabin, “projects become demonstrators of what’s possible.” Exhibiting these glowy-changing structures to the general public allows them to experience the dynamic properties of nature-based solutions.
Researching the Possibilities of Sustainable Architecture and Aesthetics
Currently, Sabin Design Lab is focused on sustainability and aesthetics in architecture (SAA). Analyzing sunflower behavior in natural environments –and their heliotropic mechanism– this research project develops Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) using computational design and 3D printing. This aims to create highly customized, non-standard filters and panels that form site-specific, non-mechanical tracking collection systems.
By studying a sunflower’s internal behavior, the process modeled those behaviors to understand how they could be analogically extracted. This resulted in a set of design drivers that could be translated into the project. By leveraging 3D printing and digital fabrication, the models facilitated the comprehension of how the systems integrate the dynamics of light and energy.
The research is focused on the idea that the significance of beauty and design is equally essential for both form and function, without a hierarchical distinction between these concepts. For Jenny E. Sabin, “Just as in natural systems, beauty is intrinsically linked to the organism’s performance.”
Seeking to apply these discoveries to residential projects, the project aims to replace conventional roof-attached solar panels that do not align with the building’s aesthetics. It creates non-conventional configurations of solar panels that not only maximize energy but are also aesthetically appealing. At a smaller scale, the research also contemplates the potential integration of portable shelters, proposing a skin able to collect energy and provide lighting or charging stations.
Jenny E. Sabin's scope of work encompasses the visualization and simulation of complex spatial datasets along with addressing matters of craft, fabrication, and production in a diverse array of material systems. These systems include woven, knitted, and braided textiles, rapid prototype and 3D printed ceramics, bioplastics, and hydrogels, as well as water-jet cut metals.
For eSkin’s development, the team was composed of Jenny E. Sabin and Andrew Lucia (architecture), Cornell University; Shu Yang (materials science), Jan Van der Spiegel & Nader Engheta (electrical and systems engineering), Kaori Ihinda Stansbury, Peter Lloyd Jones (cell biology), University of Pennsylvania.
Polyform’s team was composed of Jenny E. Sabin; project manager Dillon Pranger; design and production Jordan Berta, Madeline Metawati Eggers, Charles Cupples, John Hilla, Byungchan Ahn, and Michael Paraszczak.
SAA’s research team is composed of Alexander Htet Kyaw, Anita Lin, Begum Birol, Omar Dairi, Jeremy Bilotti, Allison Bernett, April Jeffries, Nicole Jenelle, Mariana Bertoni and Jenny E. Sabin.
