Why must construction come with destruction? Real estate development has often been equated with destruction of nature and with disruption of the ecological balance in a region. It is not uncommon for us to find areas in our town or city where trees have been felled and green cover has been cleared to give way to blocks of concrete taking over the land. Lakes are drained out and air quality goes for a toss as a building grows taller by the day. No wonder, urbanization paints a picture of chaos and damage in our minds. But have you ever wondered what if we could build synergies between nature and urbanization? What if our constructions could be inspired by nature that sustains us? If you have ever been inquisitive about it, then Biomimetic Architecture will simply blow away your mind today.
Biomimetic architecture is the one that is inspired by nature, and it aims to replicate the behavior of biological organisms and entities. This was popularized by Swiss engineer, George De Mestral who took inspiration from seeds sticking to his clothes during a hunting trip, to invent the hook & loop fastener, called Velcro. The philosophy of biomimicry is quite new to the field of architecture, and it studies nature’s models and emulates the systems, processes and forms to solve the issues of sustainability in architecture. What fuels this viewpoint is that nature has learned immensely over the last 3.8 billion years and has perfected what works and what lasts longer.
Biomimicry in architecture is all about designing buildings and allied products to mimic their surroundings and co-opt with the natural processes of the place.
Biomimicry in architecture is all about designing buildings and allied products to mimic their surroundings and co-opt with the natural processes of the place. The process of bio-utilization can help to make building products more sustainable and brings about confluence of industries and disciplines. Some examples of biomimicry can be synthetic spider silks that have a higher strength compared to steel fibers of the same dimensions. Adhesives modeled after gecko feet have been invented by taking a cue from how gecko feet work and how it helps geckos in their locomotion. Product designers have also come up with wind turbine blades that mimic the behavior of whale fins. Such nature-inspired designs help to run mankind’s processes without adversely impacting the environment through crude and additive human designs that focus only on accelerating reactions for the concerned processes to complete.
One can easily visualize the impact of such biomimetic innovations on nature. For example, having wall scaling abilities would require us to use natural magnets or electromagnets to scale up a metal wall. But if we see how gecko’s feet work, they have dense tiny hairs that exert a miniscule attraction at molecular level to enable the feet to stick to any kind of wall. Who knows tomorrow we may be able to perfect a device that leverages on this capability of fine dense hairs and give humans the capability to scale walls freely? Won’t that be an amazing thing for firefighters, rescue operators and building wall painters.
Biomimetics also play a role in choice of sustainable materials. Nature offers lessons in driving hyper-efficient resource stewardship and encouraging circular economies. We all must have observed nature to practice a kind of “critical regionalism” – which means that architecture (of natural and artificial products) must reflect the geography and culture of its setting. For example, parasites in nature so specifically evolved they can live with only one type of host. So, our construction activities must also use only those raw materials that belong to the surrounding environment.
There is much more to biomimetics, but this is all we will cover for today. With that, we leave you with some mind-blowing pictures of biomimetic designs. Have fun being confounded by them!
Cheers!
