The Biomimicry Guild, a Montana-based consultancy, is working with HOK, a major architectural firm, to design sustainable buildings that reflect and mimic elements of the natural environment, writes Harvard magazine. In one example, Harvard says HOK designers were “faced with constructing a hypothetical building in a desert setting [and] HOK designers drew inspiration from the barrel cactus, whose vertical ridges work as a self-shading device—something that would cut down artificial cooling loads in the finished structure.”
According to Harvard magazine, HOK is now designing an 8,000-acre city in India. Lavasa, the new city, resides in a monsoon-flooded region. HOK’s team examined the existing ecosystem and determined that the now arid landscape was once a moist deciduous forest. “In its original state, trees would have maintained soil quality, stored water through the dry season, and provided a canopy to control evaporation.” Using trees as the design principle, HOK worked with Buro Happold, an engineering consultancy, to design a building foundation system that stores water, just like the trees that once existed on site did.
The future city’s rooftops will also borrow elements from tree design. “The team is borrowing from the unusual morphology of the native banyan fig leaf: its so-called ‘drip-tip,’ a pointed spear at the leaf’s end that doubles water run-off and cleans its own surface in the process. Using the leaf as a model, HOK is developing a tiled shingle system that will shed water in the same way.” Water overflow systems are designed as local ants would have designed them. “During the rainy season, however, there is the problem of where to send overflows; for this, HOK looked to local harvester ants, which divert water away from their nests with multipath, low-grade channels. The site’s master plan will adopt this insect strategy to channel water through the city.”
In another project in New Songdo City, South Korea, HOK is working with Arup to design a bulding inspired by honeycomb, which “retains its structural integrity even while twisting.” “This system, with staggered supporting walls cantilevered from the core, allows each floor-plate to pivot around the center of the building, generating a structurally sound tower based on a honeycomb pattern—and the twisting form the client wanted.”
Thomas Knittel, design principal of HOK New York, says ”we don’t want merely to imitate the way something looks. We are hoping to understand the logic of nature, and how it will perform in buildings.”
Read the article and learn more about biomimetic architecture.
Image credit: Harvard Magazine / HOK
