Woven breathing façade: hygroscopic responsive textile architecture

Project development: United Kingdom

Woven Breathing Façade reimagines architecture as a living, adaptive organism. Conceived as a self-regulating system, it passively responds to heat, humidity, and rainfall by harnessing the hygroscopic properties of wood. Without electricity or mechanical components, its woven elements expand and contract with atmospheric shifts, opening to ventilate, closing to protect, and continually negotiating with the surrounding climate.

Instead of relying on technological complexity or artificial control, the project draws on the intrinsic intelligence of natural materials. Inspired by traditional basket-weaving techniques, the façade transforms wood’s innate hygroscopic capacity into a responsive textile. Each stitch functions as a pore, tightening or loosening with environmental change, creating a living weave that breathes with its context.

Over the course of the biennale, the installation will remain in motion. Subtle shifts in temperature, humidity, and even the presence of visitors will activate the façade, turning it into a slow performance of coexistence with natural forces.

At a time of climate extremes and ecological urgency, Woven Breathing Façade offers an alternative vision for the built environment. Rather than sealed, isolated systems dependent on energy-intensive infrastructures, it imagines buildings as porous membranes—sensitive, adaptive, and alive. This bio-inspired approach proposes a radical shift in how we design and inhabit space: an architecture that does not impose control, but instead listens, senses, and evolves in resonance with the rhythms of its environment.

Acknowledgements:
Breathing Woven Façade was developed through the RESPIRE: Passive, Responsive, Variable Porosity Building Skins research project, funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant. Special thanks to Natalia Pynirtzi for her contribution to this work; and to Oliver Perry and Nathan Hudson for their technical support. The project was undertaken in partnership with the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment (HBBE www.bbe.ac.uk) funded by Research England’s Expanding Excellence in England (E3) fund.

Participate in the program of debates, workshops and associated activities!

TODAY (10.10)

2:30 pm – table Risk-Free Periphery in the Context of Climate Change

4pm – table Knowing to Transform: Community Climate Risk Reduction and Adaptation Plans

6:30 pm – table Inclusive Adaptation: Nature-Based Solutions in the Peripheries

9am – Drawing Workshop: Oscar Niemeyer's Architecture in Ibirapuera Park and the Climate Challenge

IN THE NEXT DAYS (11 to 14.10)

ATTENTION the table Palmas: For 36 years, the ecological capital of Tocantins which would be held on 10/11 | 7pm was canceled.

11.10 and 12.10 | 9am – workshop Inventa(rio) Fronteiras: Playing for Multispecies Cities

11.10 | 10am – workshop Elémenterre teaching bag

11.10 | 11am – table Learning to inhabit the Anthropocene: the crisis of architecture

11.10 | 2pm – table Architecture for Learning and Civic Use

11.10 | 3pm – table Culture and Public Architecture

11.10 – 15h – workshop Elémenterre teaching bag

11.10 | 4pm – table Reconnecting with Nature & Circular Design

11.10 | 5pm – table Architecture of Belonging: Interpreting Heritage Through Place

12.10 | 10am – table Experience: Climate Refuges and Naturalized Public Spaces, with Eco-Neighborhood

12.10 | 10:30 am – table Childhoods and Climate: Climate Justice in Vulnerable Territories

12.10 | 10:30 am – Windsock Workshop with the Floating Collective

12.10 | 3pm – table Doing a lot with a little: architectures for a planet in transition with Esteban Benavides from Al Borde office

12.10 | 4:30 pm – table Earth – building a sustainable and democratic future

12.10 | 5:45 pm – table French presence at the Biennale and screening of the film AJAP – Albums of Young Architects and Landscape Architects

13.10 – activity Pantanal Action at IABsp

10/14 | 10am – table Urgent Panorama! Space as an act of permanence

14.10 | 6pm – Launch of the “Nature-Based Education” Guide

JOIN! IT'S ALL FREE!

And there's much more until October 19th!

NOTE OF CONDOLENCE

With deep sorrow, the Brazilian Institute of Architects – São Paulo Department (IABsp) mourns the passing of architect and landscape architect Kongjian Yu, a global leader in ecological urbanism, and the members of his team who accompanied him, tragically killed during the filming of a documentary. The institute is honored to have had him as a participant in the 14th São Paulo International Architecture Biennial, where his transformative vision strengthened the dialogue between global challenges and local realities. IABsp emphasizes that Yu's contribution, which transcends borders, will remain an inspiration for generations and expresses its condolences to China, to the families of all the deceased, to his friends, and to all those impacted by his genius and dedication. Read the full note here.

Ye Sul E. Cho, Jane Scott, Ben Bridgens