Photos courtesy Ryerson University

This mesh with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) incorporates lighting and pressure sensors to compensate low luminosity levels on cloudy and rainy days while showing the collection of rain. Energy for the LEDs comes from surface-integrated photovoltaics.

Filiz Klassen, an associate professor at Ryerson University's School of Interior Design, with one of her weather-sensitive building skins.

A Ryerson University professor has created architectural building skins that interact with the weather.

Depending on ambient temperatures, lighting conditions, and rain, these wall materials can change colour, reveal signage, flash with light, or pulse in harmony with wind pressure and other changes in the environment.

Filiz Klassen, an associate professor in the Toronto school's interior design department, said the material is not solely an esthetic finish. By visually conveying a building's response to the elements, it can help change attitudes about energy consumption. These early designs could also lead to building skins that absorb, transfer, and release nature in ways that lessen reliance on electrical lighting and mechanical HVAC systems.

"We spend so much time and energy warding off or protecting buildings against the elements that it takes an adjustment to embrace their full potential," she explained. "I hope my research can act as a catalyst to extend a language that is responsive to the climate in the architectural community in Toronto."

Klassen's conceptual prototypes will be exhibited as "Snow, Rain, Light, Wind: Weathering Architecture" at Cambridge Galleries in Cambridge, Ont., from November 17 to January 3. For more on the skins, visit www.ryerson.ca/malleablematter.