Having a go at Biomimicry

Although most college students regret procrastinating on gen-eds, I found myself appreciative that I had waited until my final year of school to complete my natural science credit.

Enrolled in Entomology - the weird and magical world of arthropods - I was tasked with a creative project relating to the animals (insects) I had spent the semester studying. This post features my one-week “speed-project” in biomimicry - an approach to design by which I am intrigued. Choosing the grasshopper to inform a brief design concept, I spent a total of a week’s time preparing diagrams, a digital model, and two draft renders. If given the opportunity to develop this project in a more thorough fashion, I would excitedly work to push this concept to meet the level of complexity in detail exhibited by the grasshopper. Truly magnificent insects!

Project statement and brief: “Approaching architecture through the lens of nature, the structure of living systems’ form and function can provide precedent for innovative design solutions. For centuries, the ecosystems and organisms around us have evolved and developed intricate methods of response to the same environmental and structural conflicts architecture faces in the built environment. Looking specifically to the grasshopper, an architectural form and operation can discover a wealth of information.

In the design proposal for a newly developed national headquarters of the Entomological Society of America, the architecture responds to the orthoptera’s qualities of massing, structure, vision, and membrane systems. A base and tower form consisting of museum galleries, administration spaces, and research laboratory facilities, diagrammatic analysis of the grasshopper guided the development of the organization and form, structural quality, and facade system of the architecture.”

Massing

Structure

Vision

Membrane

Facade

#biomimicry #design #architecture #entomology