HydroSKIN is an innovative textile-based facade system that captures rainwater for evaporation-based cooling, reduces sewer loads, and supports water reuse, offering lightweight, low-carbon climate adaptation for both new and existing buildings.
Organization
University of Stuttgart, Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK)
Project information
HydroSKIN represents a novel, integral approach to enhance urban climate resilience effectively and economically without occupying additional ground surface. As ‘artificial lightweight retention surfaces’ based on textiles and foils, HydroSKIN absorbs the wind-driven rainwater hitting the building façade while releasing water for subsequent cooling by evaporation.
The absorption of precipitation in the building façade considerably reduces the load on sewerage infrastructure. The majority of rainwater hitting the façade surfaces is kept from contamination by soil pollution thereby facilitating its utilization inside the building to reduce the building’s internal fresh water and energy consumption. The targeted release of water through evaporation recreates the natural and sustainable cooling effect required for the building and its urban environment during hot weather.
With a minimum amount of embedded material, energy, and CO2 emissions, HydroSKIN represents a synergetic symbiosis of climate protection with a maximum of climate adaptation in the fields of heat and flood protection. The minimal weight per unit area of the textiles and foils implies, in addition to significant savings, a universal applicability of HydroSKIN in new as well as in existing buildings, whose capacity to carry additional loads are often limited, thereby expanding their application range widely.