Category Archives: Biomimicry

For the Love of Nature: The Science Behind Our Design

June 12, 2012

This year at NeoCon Interface debuted its newest product line, Urban Retreat. The new collection, with styles ranging from refined textures to broad organic form, draws its inspiration from an emerging area of science called “biophilia”. Watch as Interface Director of Strategic Sustainability, Lindsay James explains the science of biophilia, and how it inspires our product design.

Inspired to Act Natural? Learn more about biophilia and how it influences our design, and enter our Act Natural Sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip for two to Greenbuild 2012.

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London: Buzzy and Bright

June 9, 2012

We can barely touch the surface of the science of Biophilia and the disciplines it encompasses, but to give you a glimpse, we present the last of four examples of how different peoples and countries are putting their biofeelings to work around the world. Each of these initiatives represents a way to reach thousands of other people with the message that biophilic elements have real value in the built environment. The more we each understand this, the more likely we are to protect the natural spaces we have left.

All over the world, beekeeping has become increasingly popular as a way for urban dwellers to reconnect with nature. The people of London have embraced it for a whole host of reasons: the honey, the stress relief, and the connection with nature. After all, beekeeping is ideal in a city of parks and gardens. London’s remarkable 25% green space is provided by private gardens of all sizes and types. Elegant garden squares, open public spaces, and the famous Royal Parks, such as Hyde Park, Kensington gardens and St. James’s Park. Together, these are home to a huge diversity of plant life.

THE TASTE OF HONEY

The rich variety of forage available here results in an amazingly complex tasting, and plentiful, supply of honey. It’s not just urban farmers and community gardeners who are getting involved, but people from all walks of life. They do it to help the environment and — perhaps most importantly — to escape the stresses of modern life. In short, they do it to put a little natural warmth back into their cool city lives.

WHERE DO THE BEES LIVE?

From back yards to Buckingham Palace, beehives are almost anywhere in London. More surprisingly, you can now find beehives on many of London’s rooftops — where bees need particularly careful handling. St Paul’s Cathedral and Tate Modern have them on their roofs, looked after by expert beekeepers. Historic department store Fortnum & Mason has had particular success with its sixth-floor hives, producing its exclusive Fortnum’s Bees Honey.

2500 Hives registered in London / 50,000 Bees in each hive / 70 lbs. of Honey from each hive in every season

NO BEES. NO PLANTS. NO PEOPLE.

In A World Without Bees, urban beekeeping experts Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum discuss how, if all the world’s bees disappeared, mankind would have only four years left to live. Without bees, there’s no pollination, and without pollination, there are no plants — and soon no animals, and then no humans. It’s a sobering thought that the western honeybee pollinates 70% of the food we eat. And it’s an extremely sound reason to become a beekeeper.

THE BEEKEEPER’S FRIEND

But if the ultimate aim is to save bees (and therefore ourselves), it’s important to do it properly. Keeping thousands of bees happy, healthy and productive is a complex craft. Anyone who looks into a beehive is enthralled by this mesmerizing miracle of organization. And there’s plenty of help for those who want to learn. For example, The London Beekeepers Association (LBKA) offers in-depth training and a mentoring program, which supports novice beekeepers, passing on a wealth of experience.

BEE FRIENDLY GARDENS

City dwellers that don’t practice beekeeping can still help protect our ecology and our food chain. “You don’t have to keep bees to save them,” says the LBKA, “There are many other useful things we can all do. We can plant ‘pollinator-friendly’ flowers, trees and plants. We can also stop using pesticides in our gardens. And we can support our local beekeepers by buying their honey.”

Inspired to Act Natural? Learn more about biophilia and how it influences our design, and enter our Act Natural Sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip for two to Greenbuild 2012.

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Singapore: The Lion City Roars

June 8, 2012

We can barely touch the surface of the science of Biophilia and the disciplines it encompasses, but to give you a glimpse, we present the third of four examples of how different peoples and countries are putting their biofeelings to work around the world. Each of these initiatives represents a way to reach thousands of other people with the message that biophilic elements have real value in the built environment. The more we each understand this, the more likely we are to protect the natural spaces we have left.

Singapore is a small tropical island country with a big reputation. It is well known as the premier financial hub in Asia and one of the world’s leading financial centers. It is called The Lion City (from its Malayan name) but also sometimes called The Garden City (for its 358 parks and 4 nature reserves). But just for the record, lions never lived here.

Singapore is a highly urbanized nation with a population of close to five million in about 272 square miles (704km). This land has been hard earned through on-going land-reclamation projects. Specifically because land comes at such a premium, most people live and work in high-rise structures. Since the city is so appealing financially, it attracts some of the world’s renowned architects—especially those with an ecological approach to building design.

The Solaris project is a prime example. Conceived and designed by architect Dr. Ken Yeang (whose firm is one of Fast Company’s 2011 Top 8 Most Innovative in the World), Solaris is a marvel of comprehensive ecothought.

Vertical green urbanism is the hallmark of Ken Yeang’s work. Dr. Yeang, who holds a PhD in ecological design and planning from the University of Cambridge, is the author of the 1997 book, The Skyscraper, Bioclimatically Considered.

A LIVING BUILDING

Even the shape of the Solaris building evokes a sense of life. From the exterior, one sees cascading landscaped terraces that bring nature to the doorstep of each office. Inside, two tower blocks are separated by a grand, naturally ventilated central atrium.

Roof gardens and corner sky terraces aren’t just cosmetic or recreational, important as those things may be. They act as thermal buffers. The building’s extensive eco-infrastructure is irrigated by rainwater that is harvested, stored, and then recycled throughout the building.

THAT TRULY FEELS ALIVE

Ms. Siyao He, Sustainable Solutions Manager for Interface, Asia, visited Solaris to give us a firsthand review of the project. She says. “Even though I’m in a building, I feel like I am in an open “breathable space” because of the glass façade that allows an expansive amount of natural light in and the greenery inside.” Ms. Siyao described the eco-infrastructure as a very important part of the building’s aesthetic, saying that the greenery “is designed in a spiral to provide a seemingly continuous flow of greenery throughout the building.” What a lovely thought: the pale white base color of the building blending with all the tones of green inside, gentled by the natural light of the glass atrium and still, the outside visible.

Inspired to Act Natural? Learn more about biophilia and how it influences our design, and enter our Act Natural Sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip for two to Greenbuild 2012.

 

 

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Sydney: Wooly Bully

June 7, 2012

We can barely touch the surface of the science of Biophilia and the disciplines it encompasses, but to give you a glimpse, we present the second of four examples of how different peoples and countries are putting their biofeelings to work around the world. Each of these initiatives represents a way to reach thousands of other people with the message that biophilic elements have real value in the built environment. The more we each understand this, the more likely we are to protect the natural spaces we have left.

Sydney, Australia is city of stunning architectural contrasts. It is well known for the Sydney Opera House, perhaps the most recognizable building of the 20th century. But eight kilometers north there is Castlecrag, a suburb with an Arts and Crafts feel to it. More to our point, it has a distinct Biophilia point of view. Castlecrag was designed in 1925 by Chicago Architect Walter Burley Griffin.

Burley Griffin, who had worked with Frank Lloyd Wright and created most of Frank’s early landscapes, designed Castlecrag specifically to celebrate the native bushland plants and natural stone of Australia. Many of the homes were built of the stone from the nearby cliffs so they could blend into the natural environment. Many also featured interior courtyards in the style of Roman villas. All this was decades before a national environmental organization formed to protect Australia’s native vegetation. Greening Australia, the 1982 collaboration between the United Nations Association of Australia and the Nursery Industry Association of Australia, began by focusing on declining tree cover. As needs changed, the group responded accordingly.

Which brings us, in a way, to the subject of green roofs. The idea of a ‘green roof’ is thousands of years old. The Vikings, the earliest Europeans and Native Americans, and the first American western settlers all had grass and sod roofs in common. It is a brilliant architectural solution: A natural heating and cooling system that’s easy to repair and (bonus) feeds livestock.

M Central Residential - Dale Jones-Evans Pty Ltd Architecture

Modern green roofs offer these benefits and more. Green roofs are marvels of biodiversity-enhancing, heat-alleviating, sound-insulating, stormwater-reducing beauties in urban eco-systems.

Since 2002, the country has embraced green roofs in every sector. Melbourne’s City Council House 2 Building set the benchmark for the rest of the country with its six-star Green Star Design certification from the Green Building Council.

In Sydney, two centrally located late-1800s ‘Wool Stores’ were restored into a loft metropolis with an amazing 2600m2 garden up on the roof.

M Central Residential is a massive but meticulously re-imagined heritage commercial warehouse site that began life during the heyday of Sydney’s wool trade. Built near the docks for ready access to clipper ships (such as the Cutty Sark), the buildings were made for storage; brick on the outside and good timber on the inside.

Architect Dale Jones-Evans retained as much of the original brick and timber as possible when converting the building into apartments and sky homes grounded by six retail spaces. He conceived the roof as an ‘elevated Australian parkland’ of savanna grasses, succulents, and timber boardwalks.

All of this, of course, is far above the streets of Sydney just a stone’s throw from Darling Harbour where the clipper ships (and later, the steamers) once came and left with the wool that was the country’s economic lifeline in the 1800s.

Any green roof, no matter how primitive, is a living, breathing thermal dynamics department. To find one that is beautiful, authentic, and anchored in a country’s national history like the one at M Central, is another thing entirely.

Learn more about the rooftop garden at mcentral.com.au and see more great projects at dje.com.au.

Inspired to Act Natural? Learn more about biophilia and how it influences our design, and enter our Act Natural Sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip for two to Greenbuild 2012.

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What Rubbish can Learn from the Food Chain

June 4, 2012

Janine Benyus is a force of nature. Since the publication of her first book on Biomimicry 15 years ago, she has given the practice of Biomimicry global reach. She has inspired some of the world’s most innovative companies, starting with Interface, to clamor for a “biologist at the design table” to reimagine everything from organizational structure to product development. As of May 2012, she is the winner of the Design Mind Award from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.

Interface (IF) Let’s talk about the intersection of Biomimicry and Biophilia where the Urban Retreat collection lives. Because the products are so lovely, people may have a hard time believing they are made from, in part, recovered fishing nets, old carpet and other rubbish.

Janine Benyus (JB) You’ve got a point.

IF Some people may think of Biomimicry as mimicking how nature looks. How does it apply to rubbish?

JB Life Recycles Everything. Everything is food for something else. But life Up Cycles. Think of a log. The materials in that log will wind up first in the body of a fungus. Then a mouse nibbles on fungus. Then a hawk gets the mouse. Life is always creating new products on its assembly line.

Winter Hawk by John James Audubon

IF David Oakey said one of the biggest stories in Biomimicry today was the waste cycle. I’m paraphrasing but the example went like this. The misconception is that to build a sustainable hotel, one must build it with bamboo. We should strive for recycling synthetic materials that are already out there.

JB We are not the first ones [on this planet] to build. Most organisms have to be creative with what is available. What has gotten us into trouble is this un-natural waste process we’ve created. We take compounds like oil from the earth, make something, and then just dump it. No cycles.

IF Take-make-waste.

JB Biomimicry studies common patterns. Ubiquity. Whenever you see that, chances are you should pay attention. One of Life’s Principles—the overarching patterns found among species that survive and thrive on earth— is that Life Recycles Everything. Take a forest ecosystem. Trees there may have been in place for hundreds of years. There is unlimited energy coming into that forest. There’s a lot of carbon coming in also in the form of CO2. Other things, too. Nitrogen and minerals coming into the soil. But there is only so much nitrogen and so many soil minerals. Those things have to be recycled over and over again.

IF There’s no shipping department bringing them in.

JB Exactly. Life has learned to juggle those resources right where they are. It’s interesting also because when we think of recycling, we tend to think of turning pop bottles into more pop bottles. But that’s not what we’re talking about with Life. What life does is Up Cycle. So when Interface’s supplier “turns fishing nets into new carpets,” Interface is Up Cycling; following one of life Principles.

IF Petroleum. Cars. Plastics. Chemicals. Furniture. It’s a tragedy there aren’t systems for up cycling synthetics. Although Interface has done a great job reducing its dependency on oil which helps significantly.

JB Yes, it does help. But going back to our forest example for a minute, how did all those things get to be 100% recyclable? They are all edible. They are all life friendly. Life builds from the bottom up with a small list of common safe elements. Life uses these elements to create about five different polymers (like chitin, collagen, and keratin). Why so few? Because life has figured out how to add new design functionality to common polymers. By contrast, there are about 350 different synthetic polymers commercially available in the world today. Every time we need a new function our chemists create a new, non-recyclable material.

IF Although, there’s another aspect to waste, isn’t there? Ignoring abundance?

JB Yes. In the human economy the things that have the most value are RARE. Think of gold and platinum. The natural world values most what is ABUNDANT and LOCAL because it requires the least expenditure of energy to obtain. The minute a leaf falls in the forest, everybody knows about it and heads out to get it. If it falls right next to me, it is the most precious thing in the universe. Nature says, “Hey—I’m going to make a mouse body out of that someday.” Everything is eventually food for something else.

IF Whereas to most people, a leaf is a thing to be burned, blown, or raked.

JB Yes. Because “trash” is abundant, it isn’t valuable.

IF Last thoughts. Ray Anderson.

JB (Pause) Ray was the real deal. Interface was the first company we worked with. We work with more than 200 companies today. Not just on innovations, but also on this whole idea of what kind of standards do we hold ourselves accountable to. When Ray Anderson stood up, he was alone among the captains of industry in doing that. We are not alone anymore.

Biomimicry 3.8 is the global leader in biomimicry innovation consulting, training for professionals, and curricula development for educators.

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