Biomimicry in Green Building: Nature in Sustainable Building Technologies. Biomimicry, the method of using concepts from nature to solve problems, is becoming a popular trend in green building and clean tech.
As stated by Janine Benyus in her 2002 book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, “the Biomimicry Revolution introduces an era based not on what we can extract from nature, but what we can learn from her”. Thanks to evolution and survival of the fittest, nature is extremely efficient - organisms (possibly with the exception of humans) use minimal energy to perform functions essential to their livelihood. Bosco Verticale: The World's First Vertical Forest Nears Completion in Milan. Milan is one of the most polluted cities in the world, and the Bosco Verticale project aims to mitigate some of the environmental damage that has been inflicted upon the city by urbanization.
The design is made up of two high-density tower blocks with integrated photovoltaic energy systems and trees and vegetation planted on the facade. The plants help capture CO2 and dust in the air, reduce the need to mechanically heat and cool the tower’s apartments, and help mitigate the area’s urban heat island effect – particularly during the summer when temperatures can reach over 100 degrees. The two towers measure 260 feet and 367 feet tall respectively, and together they have the capacity to hold 480 big and medium size trees, 250 small size trees, 11,000 ground-cover plants and 5,000 shrubs (that’s the equivalent of 2.5 acres of forest).
To Tackle Runoff, Cities Turn to Green Initiatives by Dave Levitan. 24 Jan 2013: Report by dave levitan In Northeast Philadelphia, along busy Kensington Avenue, sits a small park.
What used to be flat ground is now sloping terrain that contains a low-lying area intended to gather and funnel storm water. At the park’s southern end is a depression lined with well-arranged plants — a new landscape carefully engineered to change how water flows through the area. This is Womrath Park, one of a handful of “green infrastructure” projects Philadelphia has begun — with many more to come — aimed at tackling a widespread urban environment problem.