Water-Harvesting Envelopes - Integration of Sorption-based Atmospheric Water Harvesting in a Façade System

Faced with increasing water scarcity each year, regions with arid-hot climates are having a hard time collecting fresh water due to the limited rainfall or the geographic and technological difficulty of desalination of sea water. Atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) technology comes as a renewable water source that has a lot of methodologies, one of which is sorption-based AWH (SAWH). This thesis explores the potential of the integration of SAWH technology on building facades in arid-hot climates. Giving the fact that SAWH depends on low relative humidity and an abundant sorbent material it becomes a sustainable water resource that meets other façade functions like thermal and visual comforts in these regions. Using parametric design tools, the thesis explores the suggested design’s potential as architectural envelope for a variety of building uses while maintaining the visual and thermal comfort.