biomimesis in architecture

Show is not everything

Mediocre contributions, an architectural and wow cheers for the Regional Development: A tour of the Expo 2012
Is the Expo as a test of strength even at the end of superlatives? For the first time after many years of event is important, but the associated enhancement of the area.

It was then that a bird of paradise, better known as bird of paradise flower, which the Austrian architecture firm Soma inspiration for this innovative design. If the hungry, to be served after consuming nectar from flowers hummingbirds, it ends up that is not random in the hope clearly upward petal. The action follows immediately: Due to the weight of the bird is lowered, the lever arm, this in turn expands the bract apart, and so reveals the inner workings of the whole juicy Strelitzia.

"We wanted to take a model of nature," says Kristina Schinegger, head of the Salzburg office Soma. "The principle of physical force, which in turn causes a certain movement, has us very intrigued. We wanted to extend this idea to the architecture." Biomimesis called this merely observing from Mother Nature in the jargon.

At this year's World Expo in Yeosu, South Korea, one can marvel at the result of biomimetic thinking in all its glory. Never before has the technical principle of pressure and the resulting deformation was realized in this dimension. At a length of nearly 160 meters, the Ocean & Coast theme pavilion at the Salzburg architect depending on your mood change his outward appearance - and hence regulate the sunlight, and exposure of the interior.

Slams the sun from the sky, are the 108 fins on the west side in a relaxed mode. The skin is closed. As soon as the sun disappears, however, is exercised by small electric motors of up and down pressure on the blades up to 13 meters high. The result: The arch laminated, fiberglass reinforced plastic gills and thereby deform and fold up to an angle of 60 degrees. And hundreds of South Koreans clap her hands in delight. Every single time.

The theme pavilion of Soma is a huge hit at the Expo 2012th The roughly six-second play of the up-and Zuklappens fascinated not only laymen. Even the experts are entranced by the technology. The South Korean architecture magazine space devoted to the facade in the June edition of a complete dossier. The news channel CNN was the new high-tech skin even a TV-worthy post. As one can ever ignore the quality of building construction.

bionic hip joint designs through biomimetics

Skilled builders
 Hip joints like this are made of metal alloys and artificial materials. Jena materials scientists have a vision, but even being able to produce in the laboratory of natural materials - on the basis of proteins. Photo: Roland fruit
Jena material scientists want to crib secrets of nature to create in the laboratory even universal biological building blocks. With proteins they succeed to some extent already.
Jena. Whether the knee joint, knuckle or an entire hip, whether ossicles, metallic mesh scaffolding, the ailing blood vessels based or heart valve, the list of "spare parts" that man has developed in order to keep his body longer functional, is quite long. The grafting of artificial joints has become routine, the insertion of stents and bypass surgery for heart and circulatory problems as well. In close cooperation to develop medical and materials scientists are better implants, which are not rejected by the body as foreign, but complications quickly and grow into the body's own tissues.
"Materials science and medicine have come a long way here," says Prof. Dr. Klaus D. Jandt, Chair of Materials Science at the University of Jena. "But again, these are for man-made materials. Our dream is to have materials available that match those of nature." To make this dream a reality, it is at the Institute of Jandt worked for five years with hypertension. And with success.
The branch of science on which the researchers move it has a name: bionics. Jandt also referred to as biomimetics, because "we are inspired by nature," explains the scientist. The building, which the researchers are experimenting with his team here, are proteins, ie proteins.
"Proteins are extremely versatile. If you consider that the biota combined 22 amino acids into the thousands of different proteins that have very different properties and functions that they it is building high-strength structures, as it still is not the man to now dominates, then is one of the pressing comparison with Lego building blocks from which one can build anything with "said Jandt the fascination of the proteins.
He cites the example spider silk. The threads that synthesize proteins from the insects are up to five times stronger than steel. For an example of extreme Jandt effectiveness in terms of material usage and results. Or blood clotting. "A blood vessel is injured, starts a complex biochemical reaction, up to 15 clotting factors are activated at this time to stop bleeding and to close a wound. A very important function of this protein fibrin and its thread-like soluble precursor fibrinogen has," said Jandt . Fibrinogen strands join together to branch out and eventually form a stable three-dimensional network. "This makes these devices very interesting," said Jandt, who was honored for his work on the interaction of fibrinogen with structured material surfaces in February with the Thuringian Research Award for Applied Research.

Robot designed from cockroach example

Biomimetics
Robot learns acrobatic maneuvers Dash a cockroach
Cockroaches have developed an effective maneuver to quickly get out of sight: you swing to hang over an edge and underneath. U.S. scientists have taught a robot this acrobatic trick.

Cockroaches may, if they threaten to fall on a projecting edge hold, with their claws out, then swing around and land at the bottom with your legs up. If the insect is this - why, then U.S. scientists have asked him one of reproduced robots should not be able to? So they Dash taught the elegant change.

Robotic cockroach

Dash, an acronym for Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod, is a ten centimeters long and 16 gram robot made of cardboard. The six-legged, the Milli Biomimetic Systems Lab at the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley) was developed, modeled on a cockroach.
Video: Robot learns Dash of cockroach (0:41)
Thus Dash swing like a cockroach at the edge of a stone slab, can the researchers had to resort to a trick: Unlike the natural pattern Dash has no claws on its legs, allowing him to hold on to. The researchers therefore some velcro on the feet and on the edge and the underside of the slab are glued to simulate claws. But Dash was able to swing like the cockroach to the edge and then hang out with his feet up on the plate.

Cockroaches and geckos

The experiments conducted by researchers at the milli Biomimetic Systems Lab, along with colleagues from the Polypedal Lab at UC Berkeley to Robert Full. They had discovered the first to show that cockroaches can carry out this change. By chance, they discovered that geckos are in a camp - complete believed to also use many other small animals of this maneuver, since it is an efficient way to quickly make it invisible to pursuers. They turned to the scientists of the Milli Biomimetic Systems Lab to find out whether this movement can also be applied to robotics.
 Third
Cockroach, gecko and Dash: acrobatics in comparison : replaced Velcro claws.

70 young designers present their products at the Design Summit

The main thing handmade
The organizers of the "Design Summit", Anna Anastasova (right) and
Katherina lime leaf (2nd from right), with market participants (from
left) Mari Girkelidse. Stephanie Henzler, Anna and Laura Münster - The
bags that the two designers Stephanie Henzler and Anna Fuchsgruber
have designed are, with simple, but send printed motifs - and made
entirely from organic cotton. "Hand made fashionable at the moment is
right," said Katherina lime leaf. They, too, is a designer, and she
also has designed something that is mass-produced goods from the
factory far away: small, cuddly rag dolls, each one is unique.

To sell such products is not always easy. "When you have your own
business, you must first earn times the rent," says Katherina lime
leaf, who studied at the Faculty of Design at the University of
Applied Sciences Muenster. A year ago she had the idea to establish in
Munster something that has been around longer in cities such as
Hamburg or Berlin: a design market.

The premiere of "club track" became promising, the crowd was huge. And
so is the second "Design Summit" this weekend in much larger premises:
in the cafeteria at 2 Coesfelder cross. 70 designers will participate
- with products that are not found in department stores still on a
creative market. "Creative markets," says Anna Anastasova, "that's
what grandmothers and aunts." The "Design Summit" is different - young
and hip.

"For young designers, this event is a great way to present themselves
and their work," says Katherina lime leaf. And for the visitors it was
exciting and inspiring: "Some even come to borrow from the ideas."

In addition to dolls and bio-bags are available at weekends including
fashion, jewelry, accessories, T-shirts and graphics. For example, by
Mari Girkelidse who has already made full-screen Leporello, and Laura
Bischoff, who will be present with cheerful and cheeky postcards.

They were hoping for a deal, maybe even look past the one or other
entrepreneurs to discover talent. Because living products, such as
those presented in the cafeteria, is anything but simple: "Our bags
are just a side pillar," said Stephanie Henzler. The main pillar of
designer projects are commissioned.

Anna Katherina Anastasova and lime leaf, meanwhile, developed the
organization of design markets more and more promising for a project.
"We are already planning further events in other cities," says lime
leaf. And the Design Summit in Munster will be taking place even two
times a year.

Airdrop: Low-tech irrigation system wins Dyson Award

Namibian fog beetle-drinkers as a model for water extraction

Airdrop: Edward Linacre and his invention (Photo: jamesdysonaward.org)

Edward Linacre, student of Swindon University of Technology in
Melbourne, has won this year's James Dyson Award. His invention,
Airdrop obtained, a simple way from the air and water to irrigate
fields. Served as inspiration for a drought, the technical model, a
Namibian desert imagine Headquartered in Schwarzkäferart.

Low-tech as a weapon against drought

Airdrop is intended as a permanent solution to the technically
unostentatious watering of plants and the potentially devastating
drought survivability. A danger that we in Australia takes very
seriously. The Murray-Darling region experienced a heat wave in twelve
years, which has not only led to record losses in agriculture, but
also to irreversible damage to the ecosystem, a dramatic decrease of
wild life and severe wildfires.

The system developed by Linacre irrigation system must be buried only.
The rest is the intelligent combination of biomimicry and solar power
alone.

Water Wind and Solar Power

Airdrop takes about an opening on the ground air is guided downwards
in a highly coiled tube. This is already underground and is cooled by
the ground. The permanent contact with its cold surface can condense
the water contained in the air.

To increase the effect of the grinding tube with copper wool is
filled. These slow the flow of air and increase the surface area with
which the air comes into contact. If not enough wind speed, then
automatically starts a small turbine that is powered by the solar
panel Airdrop of power.

The obtained wet is stored in a reservoir and low pressure with a
semi-permeable tube upward directed just below the surface, where it
is released dropwise. The pumping process is working very low energy
and can therefore be kept in motion by solar energy.

Condensation after beetle

The idea for the concept comes from the fog tube drinkers beetle, an
insect that is usually located in the Namibian desert. This supplies
over the Atlantic looming mist of liquid. He climbs to the tops of
dunes and does a back up. This is interspersed with knobs that
increase the surface and contribute to water condensation.

Grooves on the elixir of life finally runs directly into his mouth.
The insect uses the insulating function of the sand to dig into the
heat of midday and the cold of the night to survive.

$ 10,000 prize money

Linacre managed to successfully implement his idea into a prototype.
The win brings the Dyson-it now price $ 10,000 (about 7362 euros).

Winner of the James Dyson Award 2011 invents irrigation system for drought periods

Australia's worst drought this century, Edward Linacre suggested this
to find out how you can gain moisture from the air. During the search
he came across the Namib-black beetle, which it creates a
sophisticated way to survive in one of the driest regions in the
world. At one centimeter of precipitation each year, the beetles
survive only by consuming the rope, which is reflected in the early
morning hours on its hydrophilic skin.

"Airdrop" accepts this principle and is based on the fact that even
the driest air contains water molecules that can be extracted by
reducing the air temperature to the dew point. The system pumps air
through a network of underground pipes to cool the air down to the dew
point. The water goes directly to the roots of plants.

James Dyson said: "Biomimicry is a powerful weapon for the Engineer.
"Airdrop" shows a simple example of how natural principles such as the
condensation of water through intelligent design and robust technology
can be usefully applied. Young designers and engineers like Edward
develop a simple and effective technology for the future - they are
the most difficult problems in terms of creating targeted improvements
to the lives of many people. "

According to Edwards studies even in the driest deserts in every cubic
meter of air 11.5 ml of water are obtained. The further development of
its construction will expand the application range of the "Airdrop"
yet. He himself says: "With the price of £ 10,000 (approximately
11,600 €), I can develop and test the Airdrop System. The concept has
the potential to help farmers around the world and I accept the
challenge of realizing this idea. "Further £ 10,000 was allocated
Edwards School to encourage young engineers to follow in his
footsteps.

The James Dyson Award is awarded by the James Dyson Foundation,
dedicated to the promotion of development, technology and engineering
courses and the support of medical research foundations and local
community projects prescribed. The James Dyson Foundation works with
schools and colleges both in the UK and internationally.

biomimicry design in nature

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