5 Awesome Buildings That Are Basically Alive

Structures that just stay still are so 20th century. Since we can, why not have buildings that breathe and react to their human occupants and the world around them?

The HygroSkin-Meteorosensitive Pavilion is a purely wooden structure a ‘skin’ that opens and closes in response to changes in the relative humidity of its surroundings. Like flowers!

'Silent Lights' in Red Hook, Brooklyn, is a public art installation that pulses with LED lights in reaction to the loud sounds of traffic just above it. The bursts of color increase in intensity as the sounds get louder.

These metal scales peel up in reaction to heat, creating structures that 'breathe' and behave in the sun in an almost organic fashion.

One architecture student's vision of a ballet school that would come alive based on the movement taking place within it. Placed over the river in L.A., it would come into contact with various stimuli such as the river flooding and passing trains.

Researchers at Harvard developed a 'circulatory system' embedded in glass windows that can dilate to keep them cool.