Looking Back (Biomimicry)

Initially our petri dish for experimentation was a large quarry in Marblehead, Ohio.

We were interested in issues of layering, insulation (seclusion), expansion, protection, responsiveness, and change. By applying systems found in nature which addressed these issues we attempted to benefit and learn from decades of nature's evolution and improvement in addressing human needs.

Feathers on a bird, composed of layers having different functions created layers of program in our site with some being more insulated than others;

the sensitive hairs on the fly wing respond to the population around our quarry;

scales from the silverfish provide the protection needed for places of privacy/solitude;

the flexibility from the geometry of the Snake skin allows for the expansion of our program from areas;

and the flakiness of the skin cell responds to the environment around it while natural growth begins to occur about the flow of a major road as well as from a centralized location.

While mapping these forces out we noted the ways that water was able to interact with and create potential for the spaces of seclusion and growth which we were creating. Studies concerning human orientation about water was our next step in understanding our site.

-S.A.M.

The Third Landscape and The Quarry

It is interesting how Gilles Clement describes the Third Landscape as leftovers. It is the space that humans have somehow used and left behind, and this is a result of never considering the whole. For Third Landscape in terms of the quarry, the leftover undecided land of a used quarry should not simply be transformed into a whole new environment that entirely ignores its quarry background, but should still maintain evidence of its past.

One way of maintaining the presence of a Third Landscape is shown in Clement's example of the governor of Cagliari who decided to mark off the local Third Landscape and incorporate it into one of three park areas without altering it. In this case, the Third Landscape has gained a new meaning by becoming part of a public park, and it is reusing the leftovers to perform a new function. However, it would be more intriguing to take a different approach for the quarry. Instead of simply maintaining a section that is clearly old quarry, perhaps the landscape of the old quarry could begin to move and appear throughout the new development. It could be seen as slivers of the quarry winding their way around and even through buildings. Developing it in a way that will remind visitors of the previous of the area's previous use.

Clement also produced a physical representation of his Third Landscape and people's impact on natural areas in an exhibit at the Canadian Centre for Architecture:















~Alice~

Ecospheres

One of the most important characteristics of an ecosystem (or any self sustaining system like our quarry) is that everything is connected and dependent upon the rest of the system.

This site explains how a contained self-sufficient ecosystem exists within an ecosphere. Their only outside resource is sunlight.

http://www.open2.net/diyscience/ecosphere/index.html

There's also a fun game where you can try to make your own virtual ecosystem and see if it survives. Just click "The Virtual Ecosphere".


























~Alice~

Can manipulation of genes become as safe as usage of PCs?

As with many other new ideas, the idea of expanding the usage of biotechnology creates a lot of apprehension. Even Dyson recognizes the possible dangers in the use of biotechnology. Despite these dangers, he vouches for the ability of biotechnology to be used safely by the general public by comparing the expanded use of biotechnology to the expansion of the use of computers in homes. A computer can be a very dangerous tool used for creating things like hydrogen bombs and yet has not been used that way by the typical user, so at first it seems reasonable to think that something dangerous can become safe through widespread small scale use.

However, when considering computers, note that in general, the public does not have the ability to use computers to create much more than a word document, spreadsheet or a website. I don't think I know anybody who, if asked to go home and create a bomb using their computer at home, would know where to start. The way that personal computers are set up limits the ways that they are used by the public.

How would the use of biotechnology be limited for the general public. Dyson talks about teaching children how to play with genes, helping them to become comfortable with how genes can be manipulated. He suggests having rules and regulations to keep children from endangering themselves or others. However, if we think about the computer, there is no need for rules or regulations to keep a personal computer from being used for dangerous endeavors by a child. If the manipulation of genes is to become more widespread, safety will need to be rethought. There will always be people who are not going to want to follow the rules.

If biotechnology can somehow be limited to a level where all the general public will be able to create is about as dangerous as a word document, maybe then the analogy between biotechnology and computers can make sense.

~Sophi

Biotech Future

Many of Dyson's examples of how biotechnology will be applied to the real world seem a bit too extreme and sometimes even disturbing. Dyson says that Kindergartners may be able to compete to hatch cute dinosaurs, which implies they are manipulating DNA. He says may be messy and dangerous, but what other dangers are there in in this type of biotechnology? The dangers of re-introducing an animal that has been extinct for millions of years may not be as dramatic as Jurassic Park, but how does their renewed presence effect the current systems? It has been shown that invasive species can often disrupt and even destroy ecosystems if they are not compatible. For example, the jelly fish that have been carried into the Black Sea by ships are now devouring so much of the plankton there that the native anchovies, which the local people depend on, are now left with little food. Because this jelly fish is not meant for this habitat, it has no natural predators to keep its numbers down and is currently uncontrollable.

Dyson shows that his own work would have problems of compatibility when he discusses the plants with silicon leaves. Introducing this new element in their systems means that the entire plant would no longer be biodegradable. Before plants were able to die or drop leaves without leaving behind a substance that could not simply break down and become part of the soil, but now they will leave behind "silicon trash". Not only would plants start producing trash, but he asks if we should invent a "whole ecology of silicon-eating microbes and fungi and earthworms to keep the black-leaved plants in balance with the rest of nature". He also brings up the question of how we would control all these alterations when he asks if they would "invade and permanently change the natural ecology". The fact that we may have to invent a whole ecology of organisms to handle one new characteristic of a biotech altered plant, along with our questionable ability to control it, shows how attempting to manipulate biology on such a large and dramatic scale may lead to even larger and more dramatic consequences.

It seems that biotechnology is the opposite of biomimicry in its approach to biology. While biomimicry wants to study current biological systems in order to improve current technological systems based on nature's 3.8 billion years of experimentation, biotechnology wants to use technology to evolve biology into a new more efficient system. In other words, biomimicry wants to use biology to improve technology, and biotechnology wants to use technology to improve biology.

The idea of biotechnology as Dyson discusses it in "Our Biotech Future" all seems too extreme and dangerous at that level, but it begins to sound more practical in James Herman and Christopher Michael's responses to the article. They explain how biotechnology can be applied to medicine on a much smaller scale than what is mentioned in the article. It becomes an additional tool in diagnosis and treatment instead of the alteration of an entire ecosystem. Biotech to the scales that Dyson references in his article are too dangerous and will have too large of an impact upon a system that is not prepared for the unfamiliar consequences. However, it seems much more applicable in smaller scales such as medicine or seedless fruit, which does not require the creation of new types of earthworms. Maybe biotechnology will even lead to bizarre forms of fruit.

















http://www.memebox.com/futureblogger/show/230-the-future-of-fruit

~Alice~

Local Adaptions of Biomimicry

The article brings up the issue that not all biomimicry solutions are universal and are often better suited for problem solving at a local level. Nature has developed the most efficient way for an organism to survive in that specific environment and we must also try to find local solutions instead of trying to manipulate "universal" solutions.

This is important in designing buildings that not only mimic the solutions of local organisms, but also mimic their ability to pull the most out of their surroundings. Some buildings, such as big box stores, are made nearly identical no matter where on the planet they are placed. This means more energy is wasted trying to maintain an ideal interior environment using massive heating and cooling systems instead of developing a building that is able to accomplish most of this through its design.

An example of a building that has taken advantage of local characteristics is the Clean Technology Tower by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill in Chicago. This skyscraper pulls energy from the wind through a series of turbines that run up its corners. These turbines increase in number as they ascend to the windier levels of the skyscraper and ventilate the interior. This building has learned how to adapt its systems to the natural resources of the windy city and has developed a more efficient building as a result.

http://www.smithgill.com/cleantechnologytower.htm


While humans have stopped evolving and have instead shaped their own environments, other species have found ways to adapt themselves and pull the most out of their surroundings. They have developed far more efficient systems than humans and the key to more efficient architecture is mimicking their adaptive abilities.

Biomimicry Gives Ideas to Artists and Engineers
Beyak - City on a Hill Press

The most surprising use of biomimicry in this article was the behavior of Cartesian Wax, the idea that buildings can have behavior. Instead of interacting with a "stable" environment, how can humans interact with an environment which changes.
Nature provides a way to think about problems/obstacles in ways that are unconventional. Along with being able to address new issues, nature is able to question solutions that humans have already come up with by asking, "Is there a better way to do it?"
The study of biomimicry rotates around the idea of survival and therefore functionability. What has nature come up with as solutions in order to survive? However, the dialogue around biomimicry brings up issues that are not inherent outside of the human realm: ideas about wanting to be aesthetically pleasing and also about helping other organisms/the environment to survive and not just going after human survival. [humans above basic survival thinking]
- -Sophia- -