The Geometry of Water: Shaping Terra Cotta for Evaporative Cooling in Urban Heat Islands

Building facades not only serve as protective envelopes for the interior, but critically shape the urban microclimate outside it. Working with US fabricators Boston Valley Terra Cotta, Behnisch Architekten researched the potential of terra cotta facade cladding to improve thermal comfort in the context of urban heat islands (UHI). By combining geometric strategies such as shingling, pleating, folding, dimpling, and capillary geometry with the porosity of terra cotta, the team proposed a market-ready facade system which uses water and vegetation to buffer urban microclimates from heat stress in a four seasons climate. The research was done in collaboration with Transsolar KlimaEngineering (climate engineering), knippershelbig (facade engineering), and Tripyramid Structures (metal fabrication).