#michaelpawlyn

[facade-design]

Designing with Nature: The Biomimetic Office Building

[a-inspirar]

Ghrimshaw Architects, Eden Project on which Pawlyn contributed. The brief, to construct the worlds largest Greenhouse.

[a-inspirar]

Michael Pawlyn explores the Namibian Fog-Basking Beetle from the desert of Afirca, where the beetle uses tiny hydrophilic bumps on it's back to attract water droplets from the fog which straight away runs down to it's mouth. The hydrophillic bumps allow the beetle to store water droplets in tight spherical forms which help the beetle harvest water efficiently even if there is a small amount of moisture in the air. An example of efficient fog water harvesting that has ultimately been used in Architectural Sustainability case studies such as the Seawater Greenhouse, Las Palmas Water Theatre and the Sahara Forest Project. Pawlyn encourages and believes that Architect's will benefit from working intensively close with Biological Scientists in exploring solutions to Building Design, that it becomes inevitable for future Architects.

[a-inspirar]

Michael Pawlyn  - Exploration Architecture London One of the world's leading thinkers in sustainable design, Michael Pawlyn pushes the boundaries of Biomimicry Architecture leading the world away from the industrial age (using raw materials in the 'heat, beat and treat paradigm' as biological sciences writer Janine Benyus describes) and into the Ecological Age. Three major changes that Michael Pawlyn address in his Book 'Biomimcry in Architecture' in order for the 'grand project of humanity is to endure: 1. Achieving radical increases in resource efficiency. 2. Shifting from a fossil-fuel economy to a solar economy. 3. Transforming from a linear, wasteful and polluting way of using resources to a completely closed-loop model in which all resources are stewarded in cycles and nothing is lost as waste. Biomimicry has had a important influence in industrial design, engineering, manufacturing, medicine and fashion and has only recently played a small role in Architecture, although there has been brilliance in the field that has laid foundations of Biomimcry in Architecture. Definitions Biomimicry - Mimicking the functional basis of biological forms, processes and systems to produce sustainable solutions. Biomorphism - Using nature as as source of unconventional forms and for symbolic association.