Building Envelope As an Environmental Apparatus: Integrating Architectural and Natural Systems

Buildings can be supposed as semi-living existences, because they encompass human and other livings which must be supported by conditions of life and comfort. Also building envelope has the most important role in conditioning inside and affecting from the outside environment, as it is called other skin for human. considering the built environment a system which imposed itself to natural environment systems, the building envelope may have systematic environmental function which can adjust, control, supply,connect, exchange, interact between inside and outside and act as mediator. So it would be a subsystem of the buildings which can have an intrinsic goal of providing human comfort and architectural needs while supporting an extrinsic goal of participating in natural environment stability and coordination with natural context. They can be the mediator of connecting two systems. So they would be the entrance and exit of one system to another which can exchange matter, energy and information with the environment and work as open systems. To integrate better the natural and built environment the envelopes must have some properties that can be categorize as multi-functional, interacting, conditioning, supplying and supporting. Also there can be specialized parts in its structure and function to help achieving its defined goals.