The Jerusalem Seminar in Architecture

Green Design // from Theory to Practice

25-27.01.2009

Speakers

Michael Pawlyn

Michael Pawlyn set up Exploration in 2007 to focus on environmentally sustainable architecture inspired by nature. From 1997 to 2007 he worked with Grimshaw Architects and was instrumental in the design development of the Eden Project. He was responsible for leading the design of the Biomes and proposals for a third major climatic enclosure. He initiated and developed the Grimshaw environmental management system resulting, in December 2000, in the company becoming the first firm of European architects to achieve certification to ISO14001.

He has lectured widely on the subject of sustainable design in the UK and abroad and in May 2005 delivered a talk at the Royal Society of Arts with Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface. In 2006 he was appointed to represent Grimshaw as a Founder Member of the UK Green Building Council and in 2007 was elected as a committee member of ‘The Edge’, a think-tank dedicated to addressing important political, social and professional issues.

This lecture will have a particular emphasis on solutions to water issues and will describe the rapidly developing discipline of biomimicry that finds inspiration in the startling solutions that natural organisms have evolved with the benefit of a 3.6 billion year R&D period.

Proponents of biomimicry contend that many of the solutions that we will need during the sustainability revolution are to be found in nature: super-efficient structures, high strength bio-degradable composites, self-cleaning surfaces, zero waste systems, low energy ways of creating fresh water and many others.

The presentation will describe three strands of biomimicry: architecture inspired by natural forms, natural systems and natural processes. The first will relate to the design process that led to a radical reinterpretation of horticultural architecture, producing one of the lightest greenhouse structures ever built. The second part will describe a number of examples of applying lessons from the study of ecosystems to man-made systems. Natural systems, almost without exception, work in a way that is a completely closed loop in their use of resources, such that the waste from one organism becomes the nutrient for another. The result is a model of efficiency and abundance from which we can learn a huge amount in terms of rethinking the way in which man-made systems are organised.

The third part will describe two projects in detail that propose new models for creating fresh water in some of the world’s most water stressed regions. Both are inspired by the Namibian Fog-Basking Beetle – a creature that has evolved a way to create its own fresh water in a desert location. The first project is an outdoor amphitheatre that doubles as a desalination plant. The second project is a combination of two proven technologies: The Seawater Greenhouse and Concentrated Solar Power.

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Workshop

Michael Pawlyn. photograph: Kelly Hill

Douglas River Bridge, A pedestrian and cycling bridge linking two areas of valuable biodiversity.
Design Team: Architects: Exploration Architecture Ltd (Michael Pawlyn, Anna Maria Orru)
Structural Engineers: Atelier One (Neil Thomas) Ecology Consultants: Arup Ecology

The Las Palmas Water Theatre, An outdoor amphitheatre that doubles as a desalination plant for the town of Las Palmas.
Design Team: Architects: Grimshaw (Neven Sidor, Ingrid Bille, Michael Pawlyn)
Water Consultants: Seawater Greenhouse Ltd (Charlie Paton)