TED talk - using nature as design tool

Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture


Sahara Forest Project
The Sahara Forest Project combines two proven technologies in a new way to create multiple benefits: producing large amounts of renewable energy, food and water as well as reversing desertification. A major element of the proposal is the Seawater Greenhouse - a brilliant invention that creates a cool growing environment in hot parts of the world and is a net producer of distilled water from seawater. The second technology, Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) involves concentrating the sun's heat to create steam that drives conventional turbines, producing zero carbon electricity twice as efficiently as photovoltaics. The two technologies have very promising synergies 
that make the economic case even more attractive

World Water Headquarters

WaterThis project was entered for the ‘World Water Headquarters’ competition, the brief for which required a building situated in the Namibian desert as an administrative centre for this organisation. This proposal was inspired by the Namibian fog-basking beetle (an insect that can harvest water from the air in the Namibian desert) and ancient Persian ice-making technology. The result is a completely self-contained building that generates its own energy, is self-cooling and is a nett producer of distilled water in a desert location.

Wood Green Animal Shelter Education Building There are a huge number of examples in nature of using shape to create robust structures with a minimum of materials - corrugated forms, shells and ribbed leafs are good examples.  This Education Building for Wood Green Animal Shelter is based on a timber grid-shell built entirely out of small sections of timber. It achieves the strength necessary through its curved forms that create stiffness with a minimum of materials

text and images courtesy of:
http://www.exploration-architecture.com/