Biofore Magazine 2022

FEATURE

23

By Beetle Holloway Photography Kéré Architecture, Getty Images, Biome Renewables, Airbus AlbatrossONE, Sharklet Technologies

F rom the skies to the sea, the tropics to the temper ates, Earth is an interconnected network of natural R&D labs, churning out innovations that are proven towork, efficient tomake and inherently sustainable. Nature’s solutions have been tried, tested and honed over 3.8 billion years. Nature’s designs are tailor-made for the local ecosystem and crafted for long-lasting resilience on Earth. Nature’s production lines max imise efficiency without leaving any waste. If only humanity could borrownature’s blueprints to address its own challenges… This is the essence of ‘biomimicry’: looking to the natural world’s time-proven creations for sustainable solutions to our problems. Although biomimicry is not new, climate change has increased humanity’s need for circular solutions. “Nature makes things with a lot fewer components,” says Richard James MacCowan , founder of the Biomimicry Innovation Lab. “By using materials that can be grown instead of made, there would be a massive reduction of resources, waste and energy, allowing us to tap into the circular economy.” As biomimicry can be applied to almost any industry – be it avian aerodynamics inspiring modern transport or in frastructure projects influenced by spider silk – could in novations inspired by nature’s master engineers transform humanity’s trajectory and that of our home? These five biomimetic examples certainly make a strong case.

Architecture – Benin National Assembly Whether it’s using nature’s rawmaterials for construction, copying its aesthetics for beauty or studying its structures for resilience to the elements, architects have long looked to the natural world for inspiration. However, when it comes to Benin’s upcoming National Assembly building, biomimicry also carries a cultural significance. In West African tradition, a ‘palaver tree’ is a designated tree in a community (usually a baobab or kapok) that hosts public gatherings and communal debates under the shade of its canopy, making it the perfect inspiration for Benin’s new 35,000m 2 parliament building in its capital of Porto-Novo. Designed by Kéré Architecture, the building – like the palaver tree – is split into a wide trunk and broad canopy: the trunk is hol low, ventilating and illuminating a large central courtyard, while the canopy is a network of exposed ceiling beams, evoking tree branches and filtering the sunlight. The dazzling architecture not only embodies Benin’s cultural identity, but the efficient use of space and light, as well as reducing energy use and waste. A ‘palaver tree’ is a designated tree in a community that hosts public gatherings and communal debates under the shade of its canopy.

Energy – kingfishers and maple seed turbines The kingfisher and the maple seed sounds like a fairy tale, but is actually a story of torque, aero dynamics and wind turbine efficiency. Wind tur bines can only produce energy fromthewind that’s blowing, but they canmake themost out of that wind by reducing ‘root leakage’ – an airflow issue that draws power from the blades and creates turbulence.