Prickly Porcupine Office Cleared for Construction  

Green building of the week from Inhabitat is this unusual office design - Prickly Porcupine Office Cleared for Construction.

Passive solar design meets pointillist pincushion in this stunning porcupine-inspired office recently cleared for construction in Prestons, England. Designed by UK-based Moxon Architects, the building features a bristling brise-soleil composed of andonized aluminum fins suspended from tensile rods. This striking facade acts as a rain screen while filtering sunlight and contributing to the building’s energy-efficient profile.

Dubbed Oliver’s Place Preston, the 40,000 square foot office building won a competition organized by RIBA in 2007. Its innovative facade is formed from an array of aluminum “reeds” that are all arranged in the same direction. Their placement has been carefully considered such that “early morning and winter sunlight is able to enter the building while high summer sun is excluded and so does not adversely alter the environmental conditions within the building. The aluminium fins also appear as a thicket of material that gives the building a striking appearance that changes dramatically depending on the position of the viewer.”