Art of Engineering Inspired by Nature

Global warming and the unquestionable role and share of the building industry give rise to a very serious and important question about the industry itself and where it is leading us. Considering the environmental pollution and therefore damage caused by the building industry، the immediate question is: what will be the future of architecture? Some of us of course believe that our future habitat will be extremely nature friendly and it will be in dynamic response and complete compatibility with its natural environment very much so like a living being. Buckminster Fuller once said: the best way to predict future is to design it. Indeed in the future، the houses we live in and the offices we work in will be designed to function like living organisms، specifically adapted to place and able to draw all of their requirements for energy and water from the surrounding sun، wind and the air. The architecture of the future will draw inspirations not from the machines of the 20th century but from nature and the beautiful flowers that grow in the landscape that surrounds them. In general we do not think that architecture can be deduced immediately from nature، since the design process and function of our buildings are quite different from what is found in most plants and animals. Nevertheless، there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from nature، especially with regards to the efficiency، performance، adaptability، variety and tremendous beauty which most organisms display under close observations. Considering that nature has to obey the same physical laws as man-made objects، this should be seen as very encouraging for us، making it worthwhile to study its principles and mechanisms. Indeed nature is the ultimate art of engineering and perfect architectural and building model. The structures employed in nature are well tested. The shapes، compositions، configurations and materials used in nature are enduring and sustainable. Among many distinctive characteristics of nature، there are: nature’s vivacity and evolutionary character، layered structuring and amazing load carrying system، renewability and revival and diverse complex forms and geometry. Over the past two decades، our goal at the Art of Engineering Workshop of the School of Architecture and Urban Design of Shahid Beheshti University has been to try to study and understand these later mentioned characteristics of nature and to design and construct and create architectural forms using the research information obtained. This article is about our research activities; briefly describing our thoughts and findings، and overall design fabrication endeavor.