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"The overheating of buildings and their need for mechanical cooling is a growing issue as a result of climate change. The main aim of this paper is to examine the impact of surface texture on heat loss capabilities of concrete panels through evaporative cooling. [...] A systematic process was been undertaken to examine the impact of different variables on the cooling ability...[...] This study demonstrates the potential exploitation of morphological adaptation to buildings, that could contribute to them cooling passively and reduce the need for expensive and energy consuming mechanical systems."
Cones produced by such trees as pines, spruce, hemlock, and fir respond naturally to different degrees of humidity by opening and closing, without consuming any electrical energy in doing so. Designing window blinds based on their mechanical properties that could open and close in response to moisture — but use no energy in the process — could conserve a lot of energy.
"Coconut palms can grow as high as 30m, and when the ripe fruits fall to the ground their walls must protect them from splitting open. To protect the internal seed, coconuts have a structure of three layers which allow them to withstand heavy impacts. The university’s Plant Biomechanics Group believes this specialised structure could be applied in architecture, and has been working with civil engineers and material scientists to develop this idea as part of a programme called Biological Design and Integrative Structures. [...] The group found that the ladder-like design of vessels in the coconut’s inner endocarp layer “dissipates energy via crack deflection," meaning newly-developed cracks created by an impact don't run directly through the hard shell, but are diverted and stop before the crack separates the fruit. "
From creating breathable metals to copying how animals cool their homes, architects and designers are increasingly using the principles of biomimicry in their work. Christopher DeWolf takes a look at how the discipline is evolving.
"The Orchid, a source of life and symbol of sustainability and fecundity, is the inspiration for the shopping mall ‘Wooden Orchids’ designed by architect Vincent Callebaut. On the southern shore of the Yangtze river in China, Wooden Orchids is designed as an innovative solution to the main socio-economic problem – the rural exodus into super cities which causes undue stress on city resources. The project aims to create a new eco-responsible shopping and rich cultural experience, while maintaining it as a tourist destination that combines passive bioclimatic principles and renewable energy technology to assure 70 per cent energy saving. Based on biomimicry, the architecture of the shopping hub is directly inspired by the petals of an orchid flower and designed as repetition of a basic designed module. The site is divided into two lots, each in proportions of the golden section 1:1.618. The natural order of Fibonacci numbers, observed everywhere in nature, has been adopted to develop the hierarchy and flow of spaces and places, representing the right balance between solid and void, between shadow and light." ...
"During the last century and a half, humans have created cities that ignore natural cycles such as the weather and surrounding conditions, and have developed urban areas that have little to do with life in the natural world. The control of resources and mastery of energy sources has allowed us to become carelessly independent from our natural environment—which has led to a downward unsustainable path, currently incapable of supporting the massive population growth predicted for the world’s biggest cities. [...] Nature is holding sustainable solutions to numerous city design and development problems we are currently facing—we just have to look deeper to see where the solutions are already being applied in the natural world."
"The rare blue morpho butterfly is among the largest butterflies in the world and one of the most spectacular with its brown wings that suddenly turn iridescent blue. This amazing display happens when blue light reflects off the layers of microscopic scales on its wings. 3M scientists studied the butterfly to mimic this effect in a window film."
The Eiffel Tower weighs less than the air around it. It achieves this by exploiting the same structural ideas that make your bones so strong yet so light.
"Biological systems often have the ability to adapt to their environments. They harness external atmospheric stimuli, and as a result, triggers are activated which might result in kinematic shape or chemical changes to a given system or plant. Performance challenges – when pitted against a series of resource limitations like humidity or lack of water – can provoke complex and multi-layered structural changes in plants, and nature regularly makes use of various strategies and materials to deal with those challenges.[...] University of Stuttgart Professor Achim Menges, a registered architect and the founding director of the Institute for Computational Design, is also a visiting professor in architecture at Harvard University, and his practice and research are devoted to creating integral design processes at the nexus of “morphogenetic design computation, biomimetic engineering and computer aided manufacturing."
Our reliance on air conditioning, however magical an innovation, has become a serious environmental burden. Which is why researchers in Barcelona designed a material they say can naturally cool rooms by about 5 degrees Celsius, using a moisture-absorbing polymer that "sweats" much like our own body.
"Inspired by the valvular pollination mechanism of the Strelitzia Reginae flower (commonly known as the Bird-Of-Paradise) the Flectofin® is a hingeless louver system that is capable of shifting its fin 90 degrees by inducing bending stresses in the spine caused by displacement of a support or change of temperature in the lamina."
"Imagine a concert hall of coral rising like Atlantis from the sea. Or a data centre in the side of a mountain, complete with Bond villain subterranean lake. Exploration Architecture has produced designs for a restaurant on Old Street roundabout, and even started farming in the desert, but which is your favourite? The designs are all ‘biomimetic’ solutions; they all have mimicked nature to solve a human design problem. "
"Research on the spruce cone has led to a complex skin system that responds to localized climatic environments through the natural, mechanical properties of wood and humidity."
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"[...] bioMason grows bricks and masonry without using any heat.
[...] It starts by packing sand into regular molds, which are then inoculated with bacteria. The bacteria wrap themselves around grains of sand. Each grain acts as a nucleus and calcium carbonate crystals form around it. The bricks are then fed nutrient-rich water via an irrigation system for the next couple of days, speeding up the growth of the crystals which then fill the gaps between grains of sand. After four days, the bricks are strong, durable and ready to be used on the construction yard, and the water is then reused for the next set."
"The team of architects Maryan Fazel and Belinda Ercan, from Iran and Germany, respectively, have won first prize in the competition for the design of the Moscow Circus School launched by the Architectural Competition Concours d’Architecture (AC-CA).
The winning proposal, entitled Elytra, is an “eye-catching, cutting-edge, [and] unconventional” design that will tower over Moscow’s Tverskoy District, an area which features a burgeoning artistic scene. Inspired by the forewings of insects—called elytra—the project opens upwards as a protective shell, and will feature both public and private space."
“An elytron is very delicate and super lightweight, because after all, the beetle still needs to fly,” says Achim Menges, an architect and professor at the University of Stuttgart. “At the same time it’s very robust and exceptionally high performance.”
It was these elytra, the fibrous structures in the forewing shells of flying beetles, that inspired the Elytra Filament Pavilion.
A concrete developed by Dutch scientists and embedded with limestone-producing bacteria is ready to hit the market
"Royal College of Art design student Chao Chen has developed a revolutionary new building material that responds to the presence of water. After observing the hydro-sensitive behavior of pine cones, which open and close depending upon their exposure to water, Chen has developed a wood laminate material that similarly bends and flexes in response to atmospheric humidity, soil moisture or rain. Applications for the technology include shelters that seal up when it rains and building cladding that opens to let in more light on a dull, drizzly day but closes to block out heat when the weather is hot and dry."
"Most of us were born and will die a certain color, but octopuses are masters of their hue, changing from transparent to shades of red, pink, purple and blue by stretching and relaxing their skin. If we could unlock their secret and wrap our buildings in octopus skin, then city skylines might shimmer a spectrum of colors and opacities as the sun waxed and waned."
"When urban infrastructure meets nature’s designers, amazing things can happen. More and more, biomimicry is being thought of as a way to reconsider the ways we build and operate cities. Today, these lessons are being actively applied in the realm of urban infrastructure and design in an effort to make places that are more sustainable, more livable, more intuitively designed and, at their core, more natural."
"Inside a bud, a flower’s petals lie in wait, a tight bundle of compressed tissue. When the conditions are right, they burst forth, blooming in an impressive display of geometry and color. During this opening period, which may last as long as 7 days or be as brief as 5 minutes, the cells that make up the petals may expand to 20 to 50 times their initial length. This great and relatively sudden inflation accounts for most of the flower’s shape. Some cells within the petal grow more than others and this differential growth is responsible for the 3D form of the petals. [...] Multi-material 3D printing may give us a way to incorporate such movements into the architecture of products and buildings. The provocatively named discipline of 4D-printing explores fabricating shape changing materials by means of 3D-printing. The differential growth of flowers suggests a way of designing such shape changing products."
"In recent years, architects, biologists, and engineers have been thinking about the possible connection the architectural field can have with living entities, such as insects or trees. Most of the time, architects design projects based on the imitation of natural forms. This imitation takes place in a field where there haven’t been previous studies about the organism being imitated, its basic organic functions, and its interaction with the environment. This concept is called biomorphism. When you add in concepts such as biomimicry and biomimetics as theoretical foundations, the design process is focused on the understanding of the functions of the project, how its functions and structure can be solved by studying a specific organism, and, in some supported research projects, how it can be built with parametric design."
A robotically woven carbon-fibre pavilion based on the lightweight shell encasing a beetle's wings and abdomen is revealed by the University of Stuttgart.
The Biotic-Tech Skyscraper City uses biomimicry and is inspired by squid, using transparency, flexibility, movement and protective pigmentation.
"With the relevance of the word "prevention" long ago lost, the two salient words in climate change action are now "mitigation" and "adaptation." The ideal, of course, is to design adaptations to the changing atmosphere that also mitigate the effects or lessen the causes. It does not make sense, after all, to cool your building while warming the planet. This is where nature might have some suggestions." Photo details: Icefields Parkway Near Crowfoot Glacier , Banff National Park, Alberta. Copyright © 2011, Alan D. Wilson. http://www.naturespicsonline.com
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