Reinventing Buildings with Biomimicry, My Pine Cone

Image: Noël Zia Lee | Flickr

How do you begin to model systems and processes that nature teaches? How do you translate your discoveries and breakthroughs to help in your design process, making you a better designer?

Well, I found a pine cone the other day. It was tiny, well formed, delicate at the tips and solid at the base. Yes, that is and of itself quite beautiful and enough to inspire most creative thinkers in their design efforts. However, we live in a day and age where, with nature, we can delve much deeper by changing our perspective and interpretation.

Questions like — Why was that pinecone laying where it was? How did it get there? Where did it come from? What is inside? If I take it apart, what do its elements actually do? How do they function? What is it made of? How does it travel through air? What does it protect? How? Why? And When? You get the idea…

For architects, there is an entire mindset shift going on in our profession. New ways to explore, dissect and draw inspiration from nature are happening every minute of every day. Particularly as Biomimicry is better understood, practiced and, thus, becomes more widespread.

A refined and attuned way of questioning and “seeing” should become part of your mindset shift. Building green will take on whole new meanings as we progress into the future. (It already is today.) We are going beyond learning to harmoniously “live with” nature, to become “part of it” in entirely new ways.

Now, Let’s Go Back to that Pine Cone I Found

During the lifecycle of the pinecone, did you know that it opens and closes during different points of its life, often dependent on the conditions which surround it? For instance, the pinecone scales grow in order to protect its seeds after being fertilized. Then, those scales close to allow for the seeds to develop. Once the seeds are ready, those scales will open to release the seeds — allowing them to fly away as far as possible.

What makes this even more amazing is that when the weather is moist, those same scales remain closed (so the seeds cannot escape). But when the weather is dry, those scales open to ensure that the seeds are leaving at the right time. You see, when the weather is dry those seeds can travel furthest as they are not weighed down. (To read more about these specifics, see Wiki here.)

Now let’s take this through the process of letting this inspire a design. What if a building could grow certain parts of its skin at certain times? Perhaps this building skin could resemble a chameleon which changes much more than its color. Its functions could change dependent on its relative conditions, both inside and out. What wonderful response cycles, giving architectural transience a renewed meaning.

The notion of “growth” is quite intriguing to me. Imagine a “part” that grows, plays its role and then disappears. Would that mean we could have a new kind of “scaffolding” or inner mechanism that serves its purpose during different phases of a building’s life cycle?

In the end, that pinecone was on a mission — to allow for the fertilization of seeds, to protect them and then to disperse them at just the right time.

Your building occupants are your seeds. Protect them. Allow them to flourish, function and grow in the best way possible — and make your design solution for this as beautiful as the pinecone.

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