STEALTH – Kinetic skylight design and Fabrication
UCLA Suprastudio, IDEAS, CA [2016]
Credits: Alara, Naaz, Mitchell, Busra, Alex, Peter, Lana, Eric, Jerry

In one of our tech seminars in the suprastudio at IDEAS, we designed and fabricated an interactive and kinetic skylight for our studio in a group of twelve students. After an extensive study of motion and natural light, Stealth was designed to accentuate user experience.

MOVEMENT

The aluminum panels had pattern inlay and they opened to let sunlight in when necessary or according to sun direction and time. Threaded rods connected to the panels which were turned by stepper motors programmed to be controlled by an OSC software on an iPad. All of the fabrication, design and coding was done collaboratively.  Specific modes of the skylight were designed such as a day mode, night mode and a party mode apart from other controls. This project took the entire functioning of a skylight to another level.

PRELIMINARY DESIGN

The process of designing the skylight started with different proposals made in a group of four. We designed this kinetic skylight studying the Calatrava garage door as our precedent. The skylight would have mirror on one side of the panels to reflect light in its insufficiency and the other side would be black to block maximum sunlight.

PRODUCT DESIGN

This enclosure was specifically designed according to the requirements of the module and the skylight. This design was individually approached by me and went through the process of understanding intricate details and nature of the product. It was tailor made for the raspberry pie and the slush engine ( connected to the servo motors and other technical parts of the skylight ) studying the connection of the two with each other and the enclosure.