Making a Building Out of an Anthill

If you're looking for building design ideas that are more energy efficient or building systems that protect the environment, you might literally find them in your own backyard.

A far-reaching trend emerging in green design and sustainability is “Biomimicry” – basically applying the best designs in 3.8 billion years nature to a number of industries – but especially the construction of buildings, cities and communities. On March 19th, Janine Benyus, the world’s foremost expert on biomimicry spoke on the topic Washington University’s Graham Chapel.

The local hook is that St. Louis-based HOK has exclusive alliance with Benyus’ Biomimicry Guild to integrate nature’s innovations into its designs of structures and communities – an asset for a community vying for the Obama stimulus dollars that have a multitude of “green” mandates attached to them.

Biomimicry applies the knowledge of 3.8 billion years of nature to find solutions to challenges in a number of industries. Leonardo da Vinci applied this “nature inspired” design in sketching many of his inventive ideas, such as studying bird flight to concept man-made flying machines. Perhaps the most famous example of biomimicry is Velcro. Inventor George de Mestral came up with the concept after observing how burrs stuck to his clothing and his dog’s fur.

Today, biomimicry is being advanced in the design and construction of buildings and infrastructure in ways that create a more sustainable built environment that coexists in greater harmony with nature. Examples include:

• Termite mounds – In Africa, certain species of termites have built termite mounds that maintain a constant temperature of 87 degrees F to grow a fungus on which the insects feed. The insects construct air vents that keep the temperature at the appropriate level even when the outside air temperature drops to 35 degrees F at night or rises to 104 degrees F in the day. The Eastgate Centre shopping and office complex in Harare, Zimbabwe uses this termite temperature control to regulate temperate with no conventional air condition or heating.
• Butterfly wings – Morphotex is a material that imitates the color shifting properties of a butterfly’s wings. As a fiber material, it manipulates the use of light to create color through refraction, instead of using dyes or pigments, which use more energy to produce and are more harmful to the environment. It has applications for building materials and textiles.
• Lotus plant – researchers have found that the Lotus plant can shed contaminants because its leaves have small bumps and waxy crystals that force water to “ball up.” The bumps raise up dirt -molecules, which are then picked up by the water drops. This “lotus effect” is now being applied to paint and has applications to textiles, wood and glass.
• Mussels – Building products such as plywood and particle board are being produced using a glue that was inspired by a substance secreted by mussels.
• The forest floor – More cost efficient modular carpeting is being produce by mimicking the randomness of colors and patterns found on the forest floor. Rather than uniform colors on the carpet, the randomness makes it very easy to change pieces of the carpet without noticing a difference.
• Whale power – Wind turbines to produce energy for the built environment are being made more efficient thanks to an aerodynamic study of the whale flipper.

Next time you putter in the garden or take a walk in the woods, keep your eyes open. Nature may be telling you something about a better way to build.