Biomimicry Offers Storehouse of Solutions to Global Challenges, says Architectural Firm

With the ability to detect a forest fire from a distance of 80 km, the bark beetle is 10,000 times more sensitive to fire detection than conventional fire alarms.

It’s examples like these and others — the AskNature.org website has 154 examples of how nature can detect a fire — that has Exploration Architecture director Michael Pawlyn fascinated by the wide application of biomimicry to solve global problems in a sustainable manner.

He says the design methodology that looks to emulate nature’s models, systems and processes is founded on the principle that nature has benefited from a 3.8 billion year research and development period.

All of the Earth’s faulty products have been withdrawn from the marketplace leaving us with the most efficient designs that create only renewable waste.

“When you look at nature that way you see that it’s a pretty amazing storehouse of highly-developed and highly-refined solutions,” says Pawlyn. “Often, solutions that are very well suited to the kinds of challenges that we are increasingly going to be facing.”

While biomimicry is becoming widely heralded as offering innovative concepts, it can also lead to more cost-effective design solutions, adds Pawlyn.

For example, he points to his work on the Eden Project in Cornwall, which he says “turned to nature at every stage.”

The educational ecological and horticultural centre was challenging for designers as it needed to accommodate four microclimates while being located on a remote clay pit that was continually moving and changing shape.

Pawlyn says using biomimicry the team, led by Grimshaw Architects, completely reconceived the building type after being inspired by the organic dome-shaped biome found in nature.

The dome, made up of geometric shapes, can easily rest on most ground surfaces.

It was this breakthrough that started a positive cycle of innovation for the project, according to Pawlyn. 

Once deciding on using the geometric-shaped dome, the group found an alternative to glass called glazed ethyl tetra fluoro ethylene (ETFE), which weighs less than one per cent of a piece of double-glazed glass.

This lightweight material enabled them to use far less steel — the largest biome spans more than 100 metres without requiring internal supports — which reduced costs.

With less steel, the building also receives more sunlight, allowing it to be heated by the sun long after sunset.

When completed, the Eden Project is energy efficient and costs about one third of a conventional structure.

It’s projects like these and others the London-based firm is working on — its Sahara Forest Project took inspiration from the Namibian fog beetle’s process to gather drinking water — that has Pawlyn encouraging other designers to look into the methodology.

“I do think it’s is a wonderful source for new, sustainable solutions,” says Pawlyn.

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