Adaptive Solar Screen.

Universidad de Ibagué, Colombia — 2025 — First Place, Built

The project began with a specific architectural problem: the Architecture Faculty hall at Universidad de Ibagué receives direct solar incidence that compromises student comfort during working hours, while rainwater infiltration further degrades the space. An internal competition invited student teams to propose an envelope solution for the hall. Three students, three components, one constraint: it had to be buildable. The formal logic started with context. Rather than imposing an external reference, the team analysed the vegetation immediately visible from the hall — the trees whose canopies define the visual environment of the student workspace. A detailed study of leaf morphology followed, focusing not on the silhouette of leaves but on their internal vein structure. That network of branching lines, when abstracted and scaled, produced a geometric pattern with inherent structural logic and variable aperture sizes — the foundation of the screen’s design. The technological component translated that pattern into performance. Simulations in Autodesk Forma tested multiple aperture configurations against solar incidence data, arriving at a gradient logic: larger openings at the top of the panel, where diffuse light is desirable, and progressively smaller openings toward the base, where students work at eye level with screens. The pattern does not simply filter light uniformly — it responds to where the student actually sits. The functional component resolved a structural problem that emerged during development. At the required dimensions, a single continuous panel would buckle under its own weight. The solution was to divide each panel into two anchored sections — some fixed, some pivoting — allowing occupants to regulate light and ventilation independently. That pivot mechanism, designed to solve a structural failure, became the defining feature of the system: a screen that breathes. Winning the internal competition was the beginning of the harder challenge: building it. The team sourced suppliers, purchased materials, prepared CNC cutting files, and produced a step-by-step assembly manual — because the rest of the course would help construct it, and the instructions had to be clear enough for anyone to follow. The screen was fabricated, assembled, and installed. It remains in place in the hall where it was designed to work.

Built academic collaboration by a team of three students; first place in the internal competition at Universidad de Ibagué.