Biomimicry in engineering and building

Green buildings has a positive impact on a number of impacts besides water and electricity savings, says PD Naidoo & Associates Consulting Engineers in a recent Engineering News article.

“Green building is a broad name for efficiency across everything, not only buildings, and includes transport, structures, rail networks and waste disposal.”

This follows on statements in the same publication and in other reports that green buildings also improve the investment case for owners.

PD Naidoo & Associates continue that an increased understanding of the link between a building and its natural environment and the influences these have on each other has also led to new design approaches in construction.

The concept of biomimicry has increased in prevalence, they explain. Biomimicry involves the use of nature as inspiration for design concepts. Conventional examples of this are termite mounds, which run as efficient large-scale city-type habitations, and the invention of Velcro arising from observations of burrs on animal fur.

In the recent Brunel Lecture, Peter Head, director of ARUP, also referred to the 10 principles of Biomimicry as providing the solutions for sustainable design.

To learn a lot more about biomimicry, we invite you to attend one of the public lectures by Janine Benyus and some of the directors of the Biomimicry Institute. Get all the info here…

Janine Benyus recently spoke alongside former US president Bill Clinton and renowned business author Peter Senge at the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment Summit in Chicago.