Biomimicry New Zealand

Biomimicry New Zealand

Living Pipes For Buildings Climate Change Adaptation

In vasoconstriction, thermal regulation happens through heat transfer between blood vessels and skin, these being the internal and peripheral tissues. Thinking of blood vessels as pipes with a fluid flow transferring the thermal energy to where it is demanded in a building, the smaller the diameter of the pipes, the less fluid will flow, and thus, the less heat will be taken away through conduction and convection, due to the temperature difference between the pipes and the adjacent surfaces.

A Big Jump From Biomimicry

A new generation of buildings could be fully-automated, smart buildings that exactly imitate what a living organism does. This requires the architecturally-equivalent thermoregulation solution to function in exactly in the same way as biological strategies do, including almost every aspect of a living being: locomotion, reproduction, growth and development, and respiration, with a complex hierarchical organisation of components

A Framework for Finding Inspiration in Nature

Biomimicry has attracted the attention of scholars and architects because of its potential for contributing to the design of energy efficient buildings. Given the importance of energy efficient buildings in reducing global building energy consumption, the aim of this research was to investigate the practical usefulness of a framework developed for designing bio-inspired energy efficient office buildings.

Energy Efficiency and Biomimetics

Testing the ThBA for two extreme climates in New Zealand, highlighted the fact that the simple translation of the majority of biological thermal adaptation principles are being used by architects, although for some, the architectural equivalents did not function in exactly in the same way as biological thermoregulation strategies.

SlowLoris

SlowLoris can be web-based and is totally independent of all current energy data visualisation software and complementary energy plugins. It uses the Grasshopper interface and its components to construct graphs. It is mainly targeted at optimising the visual representation of energy results and does not need highly skilled experts to be used effectively.