… proving how technology can live in harmony with nature. | redchalksketch Neri OXMAN By JOHN ORTVED | Photography TOM ALLEN Courtesy Imagine a chair that moves when you move, that adjusts to every muscle in your body, that responds like a living organism . . . a chair kind of like a really excellent lover. Neri Oxman imagined such a chair. Raised in Haifa and Caesarea, Israel, by architect parents, Oxman rebelled (well, by academic standards anyway) by going into medicine, completing med school at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Oxman usually looks to nature for practical design answers. As for her own future, she rejects any possibility of a Neri Oxman line of roof tiles or a collaboration on Andre Balazs’s next hotel. To learn more about Neri Oxman’s work, visit her Web site and blog. Like this: Like Loading...
Allison Alberts on biomimicry - sustainable solutions inspired by nature | Human World Biomimicry is design inspired by nature. With 7 billion humans on Earth today – and demand for natural resources growing, while supplies remain fixed – people are looking for innovative ideas to help companies, consumers, and the environment. Scientists are realizing that many ideas for a more sustainable world can come from nature itself. The San Diego Zoo is an international center for biomimicry research. EarthSky spoke to Allison Alberts, Chief Conservation and Research Officer for the San Diego Zoo, which has set up a special biomimicry website for the public. Biomimicry studies nature’s best ideas, and applies them to solving human problems. Lotus leaves inspired a new self-cleaning paint. She gave a simple example, involving the common lotus leaf. The microscopic structure of a lotus leaf allows water droplets to bead up and roll off, washing away even the smallest specks of dirt. Dr. And that is biomimicry. Termite mounds are self-cooling. Dr. Dr.
Exploration Architecture, Sustainable architecture, Biomimicry, Sustainable architecture inspired by nature, Factor one hundred saving, Sustainability revolution, Michael Pawlyn, Restorative design, The Eden Project, The Eco-Rainforest, Las Palmas Water T Michael Pawlyn established Exploration in 2007 to focus exclusively on biomimicry. In 2008 Exploration was short-listed for the Young Architect of the Year Award and the internationally renowned Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Prior to setting up the company Michael Pawlyn worked with Grimshaw for ten years and was central to the team that radically re-invented horticultural architecture for the Eden Project. He was responsible for leading the design of the Warm Temperate and Humid Tropics Biomes and the subsequent phases that included proposals for a third Biome for plants from dry tropical regions. He has lectured widely on the subject of sustainable design in the UK and abroad and in May 2005 delivered a talk at the Royal Society of Arts with Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface. To book Michael Pawlyn as a speaker.
7 Alternative Fuels and Fuel-Powered Vehicles With $4.00/gallon gas prices a not-so-distant memory, alternative fuels are all the rage. But what about the vehicles that run on them? Between hydrogen fuel cells, bio diesel, electricity and compressed air, the industrialized world is hard at work creating the next generation of non-oil consuming vehicles. Compressed air (Image via DanceWithShadows) Perhaps the most tantalizing of all the alternative fuels is compressed air. Vegetable oil (Image via Biodiesel.org) Environmentalists everywhere have been salivating at the idea of running a car on vegetable oil ever since the idea was first proposed, and we have now taken the leap from concept to reality! Hydrogen fuel cells (Image via ImagesMe) The prospect of hydrogen-powered cars has been enticing eco-friendly motorists for years. Ethanol (Image via InternetAutoGuide) Most of us are already using ethanol in our vehicles, as federal law requires a certain percentage of it to be in the gasoline we buy. Water (yes, water!) Electrical power
Bird Bone Structure At Heart Of ESA’s 3D Lunar Camp | UrtheCast | AJ Plunkett Ah, the mystery of birds. First, they inspire man to fly. Now the ingenuity of their interior may provide us with a foundation for returning to the moon. A hollow, closed-cell structure not unlike that found in the bones of birds has proven to be just the combination of strength and weight necessary to build a habitat out of lunar soil. The proposed moon habitat would be built, layer upon layer, using 3D printing technology under a plan currently being explored by the European Space Agency (ESA). Of course, a lack of significant amounts of lunar soil on Earth means this is mainly theory for the moment, but the experiments done so far have given us a pretty good indication that it might just work. “3D printing offers a potential means of facilitating lunar settlement with reduced logistics from Earth,” states Scott Hovland of ESA’s human spaceflight team, in an ESA statement. Clean Space Tech Bird Bone Concept What About Lunar Building Material? Building In A Vacuum
Biomimicry Institute - Home The Biomimicry 3.8 Institute is a not-for-profit organization that promotes the study and imitation of nature’s remarkably efficient designs, bringing together scientists, engineers, architects and innovators of all ages who can use those models to create sustainable technologies. The Institute was founded in 2006 by science writer and consultant Janine Benyus in response to overwhelming interest in the subject following the publication of her book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. See Janine’s TED Talk video for her groundbreaking introduction to biomimicry. Today, the Biomimicry 3.8 Institute focuses on three areas: Developing our online database of nature’s solutions, AskNature.org.Hosting our annual, international Biomimicry Student Design Challenge.Growing our Global Network of regional biomimicry practitioners. See examples of biomimicry in action! Meet executive director Beth Rattner, our staff, and the Institute board.
Great Pacific Garbage Patch The area of increased plastic particles is located within the North Pacific Gyre, one of the five major oceanic gyres. The Great Pacific garbage patch, also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a gyre of marine debris particles in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N and 42°N.[1] The patch extends over an indeterminate area, with estimates ranging very widely depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define the affected area. The patch is characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.[2] Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography, nor even necessarily to a casual boater or diver in the area, since it consists primarily of a small increase in suspended, often-microscopic particles in the upper water column. Discovery[edit] Charles J. Formation[edit] In 2012, Miriam C.
Structuring Biomimicry, Improving Building’s Resiliency The same way Einstein assumes the speed of light to be a constant of reference for his Theory of Relativity, the philosophy of biomimicry assumes Nature as a constant of reference to a performance-based beauty for design. Imitating nature has become a meaningful approach for contemporary architects and design futurists to the built environment, especially for those who foster a future that doesn’t compete with nature but coexist with it. At the light of recent natural disasters around the world, especially those geologically associated such as tsunamis and earthquakes, which have proven its destruction power over the current built environment; architects and structural engineers have found in biomimicry an ecological approach in order to improve future building’s disaster resilience. Present built structures are unresponsive to the Earth dynamics and aren’t completely adapted to the ecosystem flows of forces. Written by Wilfredo Mendez, M.Arch, AIT for IEET.org References:
EcoSapiens: Smart Solutions for a Living Planet - EcoSapiens blog 10 Very Rare Cloud Pictures Showcasing cool pictures of rare clouds caught on camera. Clouds fill the skies above us and are part of our every day lives but often go unnoticed. However, there are some clouds that are so rare that you will be very lucky to see them in your lifetime. This is a list of the top 10 most rarest cloud formations (in no particular order) that for those lucky enough to see them, were caught on camera. For those of you more interested in clouds, we recommend Cloud Book: How to Understand the Skies 1. These rare clouds, sometimes called mother-of-pearl clouds, are 15 - 25km (9 -16 miles) high in the stratosphere and well above tropospheric clouds. They have iridescent colors but are higher and much rarer than ordinary iridescent clouds. Nacreous clouds shine brightly in high altitude sunlight up to two hours after ground level sunset or before dawn. Their unbelievably bright iridescent colors and slow movement relative to any lower clouds make them an unmistakable and unforgettable sight. 2. 3.
Biomimetics One cloudless midsummer day in February, Andrew Parker, an evolutionary biologist, knelt in the baking red sand of the Australian outback just south of Alice Springs and eased the right hind leg of a thorny devil into a dish of water. The maneuver was not as risky as it sounds: Though covered with sharp spines, the lizard stood only about an inch high at the shoulder, and it looked up at Parker apprehensively, like a baby dinosaur that had lost its mother. It seemed too cute for its harsh surroundings, home to an alarmingly high percentage of the world's most venomous snakes, including the inland taipan, which can kill a hundred people with an ounce of its venom, and the desert death adder, whose name pretty well says it all. Fierce too is the landscape itself, where the wind hissing through the mulga trees feels like a blow dryer on max, and the sun seems three times its size in temperate climes. “Ah-ha!” Parker exclaimed, like Sherlock Holmes alighting upon a clue.