commentHOK Partners with Biomimicry Guild to Advance Green Design
HOK, the world’s largest architectural/engineering firm, recently announced a formal partnership with the Biomimicry Guild. In an audio press conference, representatives from both organizations strove to impress biomimicry as an emerging and vital element of sustainable design. The Biomimicry Guild was founded ten years ago by biologists Janine Benyus and Danya Baumeister based on their interest in using their special knowledge of biological adaptations to solve design and engineering challenges. They are to date the only group in the world dedicated to this approach.
A proposed 'skin' for buildings was a major biomemetic component of HOK and the Biomimicry Guild's vision of future Atlanta
Based on what you have seen and read about this project, how would you grade it? Use the stars below to indicate your assessment, five stars being the highest rating.
The Biomimicry Guild hopes to bring new attention to biomemetic solutions, creative answers to design problems based on the natural functionality of biological adaptations. They also hope to gain credence and credibility through their partnership with industry giant HOK, and eventually enhance sustainable building practices and find organic solutions to whole building construction and broader urban planning. As HOK president Bill Hellmuth emphasized, 50 percent of all U.S. carbon emissions come from constructing and maintaining buildings and 76 percent of electricity production goes toward powering buildings. Organic solutions to these problems are critical.
But what is biomimicry in the field of green building? HOK and the Biomimicry Guild offered a number of past examples of successful biomemetic design work. In a collaboration with the Interface corporation the Guild helped revolution carpet tile design based on the organic patterns of forest floors. The Eastgate Centre in Zimbabwe was designed after the ventilation structure of native termite mounds, and purportedly uses only 10% of the energy of buildings of similar size.
HOK and the Guild first collaborated on a project about the future of Atlanta. They used biomemetic techniques to design theoretical “skin” cells for buildings that act as leaves, taking in solar energy, water, and CO2 to produce oxygen and collect water for the city reservoir. The first actual construction project to be undertaken under the new partnership involves the building of a series of villages in Maharashtra, India, along a steep mountain slope and seasonal river valley. In order to make structures that can survive and utilize torrential monsoon rains HOK and the guild studied the root structures of indigenous mountain trees and plants. This led to house designs that are unconventionally anchored to withstand soil erosion while collecting water for the dry season in a manmade taproot.
These are just a few examples of the biomemetic design philosophy HOK and the Biomimicry guild will attempt to instill in the industry. They also stress the importance of function in their work, heading off confusion with biomorphic design, engineering that only mimics nature aesthetically.
