Can Biomimicry Be a Useful Tool for Design for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation? - Biotechnologies and Biomimetics for Civil Engineering - page 98

4.4.1 Responding to Direct Impacts of Climate Change
The living world is made of numerous organisms that effectively solve the same
problems that the built environment will face as climate change continues. While
the potential impacts of climate change are numerous and dependent on local
conditions, the list of organisms and ecosystems that effectively manage similar
issues is also long. There are approximately 1.8 million species which have been
described and categorised. Estimates of the total number of species range, how-
ever, from 2 to 100 million, with a 'best guest' at 14 million (Purvis and Hector
2000 ). There are organisms and ecosystems that manage overheating, high winds
and erosion. Organisms may be specifically tailored to these conditions because
they are part of their habitat niche. Other organisms demonstrate strategies to adapt
to changes on a temporary basis that could be useful for humans to study, while
others adapt over the longer term or over generations, through the processes of
evolution. Several architectural biomimicry projects respond to direct impacts
of climate change. The architecture discussed here may form a suitable response to
changes in precipitation patterns and projected water shortages for example.
Grimshaw Architects in collaboration with Charles Paton of Seawater Green-
house have taken an understanding of the Namib desert beetle and proposed a
unique desalinisation process that will form part of a large outdoor theatre called
Teatro del Agua on a shore of the Canary Islands. The stenocara beetle lives in
desert with little rainfall but with short infrequent morning fogs. It is able to
capture moisture from the swift moving fog by tilting its body into the wind. Water
condenses on the surface of the beetle's back because its shell is cooler than the
surrounding air. Droplets form on the shell, and the alternating hydrophilic,
hydrophobic surface of the beetle's back enables the drops to roll down into its
mouth (Garrod et al. 2007 ; Parker and Lawrence 2001 ). Research conducted in the
United Kingdom has also shown that surfaces based on the beetle's shell are
several times more effective at harvesting fog than typical methods using nets
(Trivedi 2001 ), and could be useful in improving the design of de-humidification
and distillation equipment (Knight 2001 ).
The Teatro del Agua mimics aspects of the beetle by passing sea water over a
series of evaporative grills. As the sea breeze moves through these grills, some of
the water evaporates leaving salt behind. The moist air then continues until it hits
pipes holding cool sea water, pumped up from the nearby ocean. As the warm
moist air touches the cool pipes, condensation forms and clean fresh water trickles
down the outside of the pipes to be collected. The sea water pumps are powered by
wind turbines using the same uni-directional sea breeze. The building is projected
to be self-sufficient in water with surplus being transferred to neighbouring
buildings and landscapes (Pawlyn 2011 , p. 70).
Another established example of biomineralisation that could relate to climate
change adaptation and may have application to the building industry is Biorock
(Fig. 4.7 ). Biorock was developed by marine biologist Thomas Goreau and
engineer Wolf Hilbertz in the 1970s to restore coral reefs (Pawlyn 2011 , p. 50).