Architecture is a manifestation of social and cultural values. Today buildings consume more energy than any other sector; these are also the largest contributors to climate change. Consequently, architecture has the potential to direct the impact that buildings have on the environment. This thesis seeks to re-examine, re-imagine the processes of making responsive architectural skins. Most importantly it explores the role of embedded computation and sensing technology as part of both the design praxis and part of the building system. The primary motivation of my thesis is to discover novel approaches to material processing that improve the energy performance of buildings.