Second Skin (aka. FlaxWing): Exploring bioclimatic wrapping for climate-resilient housing in Australia
Researcher
Mike Louw, Sally Farrah, Iain Maxwell, Sam Tomkins
Published
05 Mar 2025
Funding
Design Strategy Grant
The impacts of climate change underpin an urgent need to reconsider ways of making residential buildings - existing and new - more resilient.
Second Skin (aka. FlaxWing) is a research project that focuses on the possibilities of a more climate responsive architectural approach. Via concepts of adaptation, we consider the social and technical reuse of existing building stock; the transformation of prevailing construction practices via the uptake of bio-based and low-carbon building materials; and the very adaptation of buildings themselves in response to environmental and occupant influences enacted via cyber-physical systems.
The FlaxWing system explores the idea of cladding as a repetitive and economic system, that also allows for differentiation and the expression of place (i.e., environmental response) and identity (i.e., response to the rituals of the individual).
