What's Happening from Environmental Building News
December 1, 2008
Biomimicry Guild, HOK in Alliance
Biomimicry, the interdisciplinary practice of adapting nature’s solutions to human designs and inventions, has made a big move into the built environment. The international architecture and engineering firm HOK has announced an alliance with the Biomimicry Guild, the preeminent biomimicry consultancy, with the aim of integrating “nature’s innovations in the planning and design of buildings, communities, and cities worldwide.” The alliance has begun its work by exploring the use of “bio-inspired ideas” in designing a major residential development in Lavasa, India.
“The alliance between HOK and the Guild is an incredible opportunity,” said biologist Dayna Baumeister, Ph.D., co-founder, along with naturalist and author Janine Benyus, of the Biomimicry Guild. “In the built environment it’s all about producing habitat conditions that are conducive to life,” she explained. “And life out there is constantly working on creating habitat conditions that are conducive for all the organisms that are co-inhabiting a particular space.” Baumeister said that biomimicry would help HOK examine numerous aspects of the built environment, from overall land-use impacts to gathering water, generating energy, and moving people.
Mary Ann Lazarus, AIA, sustainable design director for HOK, said that the firm had worked with the Biomimicry Guild several times in the past, including collaborating on HOK’s entry in the History Channel’s 2008 “City of the Future” competition. The two groups formalized their alliance in April 2008 but waited a few months before announcing it to be able to discuss specific projects.
In Lavasa, a major issue will be water. A three-month monsoon season brings the region several meters of rain annually, bringing risks of flooding and erosion, while the landscape can become dry and water scarce in the remainder of the year. The designers hope, by examininghow nature captures and stores water, to find innovative solutions to this design challenge.
“We believe biomimicry will not only help us significantly reduce the environmental impact of our projects but also has the potential to help define a whole new sustainable standard for our profession,” said Lazarus. To that end, HOK has begun to look at “ecological performance standards” as a way of gauging the success of projects, said Lazarus, referring to a concept promoted by the Guild. Explaining how project teams can approach ecological performance standards, Benyus told
EBN, “Your building project should do at least as well for ecosystem services as the ecosystem it replaced.” Ecosystem services are the beneficial functions performed by intact ecosystems as filtering water, filtering air, controlling floods, decomposing waste, moderating climate, and providing beauty. Performance standards seek to measure those exactly.
Biomimicry has become influential in product innovation and design in products like Velcro (inspired by seed burrs) and randomly patterned carpet tile (inspired by the forest floor), but has not yet been formally applied to architecture. “We’re excited about seeing these ideas go to a different scale,” said Lazarus.
In a separate announcement, the United Nations Environmental Program announced in October 2008 the findings of its collaboration with the Biomimicry Guild, the Biomimicry Institute (a related nonprofit), and several others. Dubbed “Nature’s 100 Best,” the research project is intended to bring attention to “proven design systems from nature” that could offer environmentally friendly innovations.
– Tristan Korthals Altes
For more information:
HOK
www.hok.com
Biomimicry Guild
www.biomimicryguild.com
Nature’s 100 Best
www.n100best.org
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Photo: HOK
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