Biomimicry

Biomimicry or biomimetics is the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems.

a.Sponges Provide Inspiration for Eco-Design

The most notable of sponge-inspired buildings is architect Norman Foster’s creation in London, the Swiss Re Tower.  The Swiss Re not only uses a unique system of three-way lattice beams much like a sponge’s exoskeleton, but a network of shafts and holes through its many floors replicates the filtration and circulation system sponge’s depend on for survival.  This unique ventilation system has allowed the building to run on half the energy costs of a typical building its size.

b.Trabeculae: Not your regular office building



Trabeculae by architects  Dave Pigram, Iain Maxwell, Brad Rothenberg, and Ezio Blasetti is a new take at the general atrium solution to office buildings. the point of a central atrium (like in that of the Bradbury Building) is to allow light deep into a building, the Trebeculae team argues that if that’s the main point, why not have the atrium chase the sun? Explanation and more images…

The team used a Heliotropic branching system to define the shape of the void that eats into the floors of the building. Heliotropism is the phenomena of plants growing over time in the direction of the sun to maximize their energy output. Similar to how a plant will chase the sun, the team used algorithms to define the void that fed of solar information particular to the site. This means that this void is a direct diagram of the solar conditions present on that site, maximized to allow the most sunlight through computation. The below diagram illustrates the steps taken to arrive at the final void.


The team took a second pass at the void to create the structural mesh that would lay inside the void and took opportunities to create bridges and meeting rooms embedded off the inner lining of the structure. below is a close up of the more finer structure within.



If your are for some reason thirsty for a more theoretical explanation to how this project embodies everything biomimicry has to offer you can read the excerpt below:
“In the Trabeculae tower, the algorithm represents a potential for difference. A highly complex network of response and decision making mechanisms capable of engendering spatial and formal differentiation through multiple levels of internal and environmental feedback and negotiation. In this regard, the architectural project is no longer regarded as a passive entity, but rather a typologically-free machine of multiple possibilities more akin to the morphogenesis of an organism. Where within the system, the very construction of architecture; position, scale, displacement, density, thickness, and length are not only embedded, but more critically become discretely informed by local environmental sampling.”