The Facts

• On space cooling alone, Americans spend about $26 Billion each year.

• The IEA estimates that around 1 billion tones of CO2 comes from cooling systems in 2022.

• About 2.7% of total CO2 emissions.

Problem & Solution

• Rooms and espessialy weight rooms can often get uncomfortably hot and humid inside

• To get rid of the warm, humid air, the windows open to let the air out and fresh air in.

• Inspired by pinecones, which open in changes of humidity or heat, we applied this concept to a room or weight room.

How do Pine Cones Open and Close due to Temperature?

• Pinecones open and close in response to changes in temperature and humidity.

• This process is called thermoperiodism movement, they do this to disperse their seeds in the best weather conditions for the to spread

• When weather gets wet and humid and/or the temperature drops, the scales will close and vise-versa

The Mechanism Behind the Pinecone

• Outer most side of the scale is made of a layer of loosely packed, stretchable cells.
• The inner layer is made of stiff fibers tightly packed like cables.
• water fills up the cells and the empty spaces between them. This layer expands and stretches, while the less flexible upper layer stays more taut. The scales bend upward in the middle until they curl completely shut.

What is LEED?

• The world's most widely used green building rating system.

• LEED certification provides a framework for healthy, highly efficient, and cost-saving green buildings, which offer environmental, social and governance benefits.

Largest fossil-fuel-free building in Boston, relying on deep wells to harness the thermal capacity of the earth for heating and cooling and eliminate the need to connect the building to a gas line.

No gas lines connected to the entire building!

Initial Sketches

Mid Review Sketch

Second Prototype

Arduino for the Servo Motor

Arduino

Servo Motors

Our Next Steps After Midreview

• Better material; wood

• Better support for the windows

• Change our mechanism of how the windows opened and closed

• Better hinges for the smooth movements

• Heat/humidity sensor in the room to signal the motors



• Clean up the wires

Mid-Review Feedback

• Describe the details and function of pinecones.

• Have different windows open at various temperatures. For example, when it's warmer more windows open and when it's cooler less windows open.

• Think more about the aesthetic of the building and the shapes of windows to not just function like a pinecone but also look like one.

• Look into LEED and adaptive architechture to see how we could apply them to our project

Adaptive Architecture

Final Sketches

Room and Windows Iteration 2

Final Prototype

Goes alot slower in person*

How we could take this one step further

• This could be applied to a real world project

• Make our project look and act more like a pinecone

• Make the windows open gradually in relation to the temperature

• Could make a round room or level of a building with pinecone windows all around