ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Michael Pawlyn - Architect
Michael Pawlyn takes cues from nature to make new, sustainable architectural environments.

Why you should listen

Michael Pawlyn established the architecture firm Exploration in 2007 to focus on environmentally sustainable projects that take their inspiration from nature.

Prior to setting up the company, Pawlyn worked with the firm Grimshaw for ten years and was central to the team that radically re-invented horticultural architecture for the Eden Project. He was responsible for leading the design of the Warm Temperate and Humid Tropics Biomes and the subsequent phases that included proposals for a third Biome for plants from dry tropical regions. In 1999 he was one of five winners in A Car-free London, an ideas competition for strategic solutions to the capital’s future transport needs and new possibilities for urban spaces. In September 2003 he joined an intensive course in nature-inspired design at Schumacher College, run by Amory Lovins and Janine Benyus. He has lectured widely on the subject of sustainable design in the UK and abroad.

His Sahara Forest Project, covered in this TEDTalk, recently won major funding >>

More profile about the speaker
Michael Pawlyn | Speaker | TED.com
TEDSalon London 2010

Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture

Filmed:
2,031,800 views

How can architects build a new world of sustainable beauty? By learning from nature. Michael Pawlyn describes three habits of nature that could transform architecture and society: radical resource efficiency, closed loops, and drawing energy from the sun.
- Architect
Michael Pawlyn takes cues from nature to make new, sustainable architectural environments. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:15
I'd like to start with a couple of quick examples.
0
0
3000
00:18
These are spinneret glands
1
3000
2000
00:20
on the abdomen of a spider.
2
5000
2000
00:22
They produce six different types of silk, which is spun together into a fiber,
3
7000
3000
00:25
tougher than any fiber humans have ever made.
4
10000
3000
00:28
The nearest we've come is with aramid fiber.
5
13000
3000
00:31
And to make that, it involves extremes of temperature,
6
16000
2000
00:33
extremes of pressure and loads of pollution.
7
18000
3000
00:36
And yet the spider manages to do it at ambient temperature and pressure
8
21000
3000
00:39
with raw materials of dead flies and water.
9
24000
3000
00:42
It does suggest we've still got a bit to learn.
10
27000
2000
00:44
This beetle can detect a forest fire at 80 kilometers away.
11
29000
3000
00:47
That's roughly 10,000 times the range
12
32000
2000
00:49
of man-made fire detectors.
13
34000
2000
00:51
And what's more, this guy doesn't need a wire
14
36000
2000
00:53
connected all the way back to a power station burning fossil fuels.
15
38000
4000
00:57
So these two examples give a sense of what biomimicry can deliver.
16
42000
3000
01:00
If we could learn to make things and do things the way nature does,
17
45000
3000
01:03
we could achieve factor 10, factor 100,
18
48000
2000
01:05
maybe even factor 1,000 savings
19
50000
2000
01:07
in resource and energy use.
20
52000
3000
01:10
And if we're to make progress with the sustainability revolution,
21
55000
3000
01:13
I believe there are three really big changes
22
58000
2000
01:15
we need to bring about.
23
60000
2000
01:17
Firstly, radical increases in resource efficiency.
24
62000
3000
01:20
Secondly, shifting from a linear, wasteful,
25
65000
2000
01:22
polluting way of using resources
26
67000
2000
01:24
to a closed-loop model.
27
69000
2000
01:26
And thirdly, changing from a fossil fuel economy
28
71000
2000
01:28
to a solar economy.
29
73000
2000
01:30
And for all three of these, I believe,
30
75000
2000
01:32
biomimicry has a lot of the solutions that we're going to need.
31
77000
2000
01:34
You could look at nature as being like a catalog of products,
32
79000
3000
01:37
and all of those have benefited
33
82000
2000
01:39
from a 3.8-billion-year research and development period.
34
84000
3000
01:42
And given that level of investment, it makes sense to use it.
35
87000
3000
01:45
So I'm going to talk about some projects that have explored these ideas.
36
90000
3000
01:48
And let's start with radical increases
37
93000
2000
01:50
in resource efficiency.
38
95000
2000
01:52
When we were working on the Eden Project,
39
97000
2000
01:54
we had to create a very large greenhouse
40
99000
2000
01:56
in a site that was not only irregular,
41
101000
2000
01:58
but it was continually changing because it was still being quarried.
42
103000
3000
02:01
It was a hell of a challenge,
43
106000
2000
02:03
and it was actually examples from biology
44
108000
2000
02:05
that provided a lot of the clues.
45
110000
2000
02:07
So for instance,
46
112000
2000
02:09
it was soap bubbles that helped us generate a building form
47
114000
2000
02:11
that would work regardless of the final ground levels.
48
116000
3000
02:14
Studying pollen grains
49
119000
2000
02:16
and radiolaria and carbon molecules
50
121000
2000
02:18
helped us devise the most efficient structural solution
51
123000
3000
02:21
using hexagons and pentagons.
52
126000
3000
02:24
The next move was that we wanted
53
129000
2000
02:26
to try and maximize the size of those hexagons.
54
131000
2000
02:28
And to do that we had to find an alternative to glass,
55
133000
2000
02:30
which is really very limited in terms of its unit sizes.
56
135000
3000
02:33
And in nature there are lots of examples
57
138000
3000
02:36
of very efficient structures based on pressurized membranes.
58
141000
3000
02:39
So we started exploring this material called ETFE.
59
144000
3000
02:42
It's a high-strength polymer.
60
147000
2000
02:44
And what you do is you put it together in three layers,
61
149000
2000
02:46
you weld it around the edge, and then you inflate it.
62
151000
3000
02:49
And the great thing about this stuff
63
154000
2000
02:51
is you can make it in units
64
156000
2000
02:53
of roughly seven times the size of glass,
65
158000
2000
02:55
and it was only one percent of the weight of double-glazing.
66
160000
2000
02:57
So that was a factor-100 saving.
67
162000
2000
02:59
And what we found is that we got into a positive cycle
68
164000
3000
03:02
in which one breakthrough facilitated another.
69
167000
2000
03:04
So with such large, lightweight pillows,
70
169000
3000
03:07
we had much less steel.
71
172000
2000
03:09
With less steel we were getting more sunlight in,
72
174000
2000
03:11
which meant we didn't have to put as much extra heat in winter.
73
176000
3000
03:14
And with less overall weight in the superstructure,
74
179000
2000
03:16
there were big savings in the foundations.
75
181000
2000
03:18
And at the end of the project we worked out
76
183000
2000
03:20
that the weight of that superstructure
77
185000
2000
03:22
was actually less than the weight of the air inside the building.
78
187000
3000
03:25
So I think the Eden Project is a fairly good example
79
190000
3000
03:28
of how ideas from biology
80
193000
2000
03:30
can lead to radical increases in resource efficiency --
81
195000
3000
03:33
delivering the same function,
82
198000
2000
03:35
but with a fraction of the resource input.
83
200000
2000
03:37
And actually there are loads of examples in nature
84
202000
2000
03:39
that you could turn to for similar solutions.
85
204000
3000
03:42
So for instance, you could develop super-efficient roof structures
86
207000
3000
03:45
based on giant Amazon water lilies,
87
210000
3000
03:48
whole buildings inspired by abalone shells,
88
213000
2000
03:50
super-lightweight bridges inspired by plant cells.
89
215000
3000
03:53
There's a world of beauty and efficiency to explore here
90
218000
3000
03:56
using nature as a design tool.
91
221000
3000
03:59
So now I want to go onto talking about the linear-to-closed-loop idea.
92
224000
3000
04:02
The way we tend to use resources
93
227000
2000
04:04
is we extract them,
94
229000
2000
04:06
we turn them into short-life products and then dispose of them.
95
231000
2000
04:08
Nature works very differently.
96
233000
2000
04:10
In ecosystems, the waste from one organism
97
235000
2000
04:12
becomes the nutrient for something else in that system.
98
237000
2000
04:14
And there are some examples of projects
99
239000
2000
04:16
that have deliberately tried to mimic ecosystems.
100
241000
3000
04:19
And one of my favorites
101
244000
2000
04:21
is called the Cardboard to Caviar Project
102
246000
2000
04:23
by Graham Wiles.
103
248000
2000
04:25
And in their area they had a lot of shops and restaurants
104
250000
3000
04:28
that were producing lots of food, cardboard and plastic waste.
105
253000
3000
04:31
It was ending up in landfills.
106
256000
2000
04:33
Now the really clever bit is what they did with the cardboard waste.
107
258000
2000
04:35
And I'm just going to talk through this animation.
108
260000
3000
04:38
So they were paid to collect it from the restaurants.
109
263000
2000
04:40
They then shredded the cardboard
110
265000
2000
04:42
and sold it to equestrian centers as horse bedding.
111
267000
3000
04:45
When that was soiled, they were paid again to collect it.
112
270000
2000
04:47
They put it into worm recomposting systems,
113
272000
2000
04:49
which produced a lot of worms, which they fed to Siberian sturgeon,
114
274000
3000
04:52
which produced caviar, which they sold back to the restaurants.
115
277000
3000
04:55
So it transformed a linear process
116
280000
2000
04:57
into a closed-loop model,
117
282000
2000
04:59
and it created more value in the process.
118
284000
3000
05:02
Graham Wiles has continued to add more and more elements to this,
119
287000
2000
05:04
turning waste streams into schemes that create value.
120
289000
3000
05:07
And just as natural systems
121
292000
2000
05:09
tend to increase in diversity and resilience over time,
122
294000
3000
05:12
there's a real sense with this project
123
297000
2000
05:14
that the number of possibilities
124
299000
3000
05:17
just continue increasing.
125
302000
2000
05:19
And I know it's a quirky example,
126
304000
2000
05:21
but I think the implications of this are quite radical,
127
306000
2000
05:23
because it suggests that we could actually
128
308000
2000
05:25
transform a big problem -- waste -- into a massive opportunity.
129
310000
3000
05:28
And particularly in cities --
130
313000
2000
05:30
we could look at the whole metabolism of cities,
131
315000
2000
05:32
and look at those as opportunities.
132
317000
2000
05:34
And that's what we're doing on the next project I'm going to talk about,
133
319000
2000
05:36
the Mobius Project,
134
321000
2000
05:38
where we're trying to bring together a number of activities,
135
323000
2000
05:40
all within one building,
136
325000
2000
05:42
so that the waste from one can be the nutrient for another.
137
327000
3000
05:45
And the kind of elements I'm talking about
138
330000
2000
05:47
are, firstly, we have a restaurant inside a productive greenhouse,
139
332000
3000
05:50
a bit like this one in Amsterdam called De Kas.
140
335000
2000
05:52
Then we would have an anaerobic digester,
141
337000
2000
05:54
which could deal with all the biodegradable waste from the local area,
142
339000
3000
05:57
turn that into heat for the greenhouse
143
342000
2000
05:59
and electricity to feed back into the grid.
144
344000
2000
06:01
We'd have a water treatment system
145
346000
2000
06:03
treating wastewater, turning that into fresh water
146
348000
2000
06:05
and generating energy from the solids
147
350000
2000
06:07
using just plants and micro-organisms.
148
352000
3000
06:10
We'd have a fish farm fed with vegetable waste from the kitchen
149
355000
2000
06:12
and worms from the compost
150
357000
2000
06:14
and supplying fish back to the restaurant.
151
359000
2000
06:16
And we'd also have a coffee shop, and the waste grains from that
152
361000
3000
06:19
could be used as a substrate for growing mushrooms.
153
364000
2000
06:21
So you can see that we're bringing together
154
366000
2000
06:23
cycles of food, energy and water and waste
155
368000
2000
06:25
all within one building.
156
370000
2000
06:27
And just for fun, we've proposed this for a roundabout in central London,
157
372000
3000
06:30
which at the moment is a complete eyesore.
158
375000
2000
06:32
Some of you may recognize this.
159
377000
2000
06:34
And with just a little bit of planning,
160
379000
2000
06:36
we could transform a space dominated by traffic
161
381000
3000
06:39
into one that provides open space for people,
162
384000
3000
06:42
reconnects people with food
163
387000
2000
06:44
and transforms waste into closed loop opportunities.
164
389000
3000
06:47
So the final project I want to talk about
165
392000
2000
06:49
is the Sahara Forest Project, which we're working on at the moment.
166
394000
3000
06:52
It may come as a surprise to some of you
167
397000
2000
06:54
to hear that quite large areas of what are currently desert
168
399000
2000
06:56
were actually forested a fairly short time ago.
169
401000
3000
06:59
So for instance, when Julius Caesar arrived in North Africa,
170
404000
3000
07:02
huge areas of North Africa
171
407000
2000
07:04
were covered in cedar and cypress forests.
172
409000
2000
07:07
And during the evolution of life on the Earth,
173
412000
2000
07:09
it was the colonization
174
414000
2000
07:11
of the land by plants
175
416000
2000
07:13
that helped create the benign climate we currently enjoy.
176
418000
2000
07:15
The converse is also true.
177
420000
2000
07:17
The more vegetation we lose,
178
422000
2000
07:19
the more that's likely to exacerbate climate change
179
424000
2000
07:21
and lead to further desertification.
180
426000
3000
07:24
And this animation,
181
429000
2000
07:26
this shows photosynthetic activity over the course of a number of years,
182
431000
3000
07:29
and what you can see is that the boundaries of those deserts
183
434000
3000
07:32
shift quite a lot,
184
437000
2000
07:34
and that raises the question
185
439000
2000
07:36
of whether we can intervene at the boundary conditions
186
441000
3000
07:39
to halt, or maybe even reverse, desertification.
187
444000
3000
07:42
And if you look at some of the organisms
188
447000
2000
07:44
that have evolved to live in deserts,
189
449000
2000
07:46
there are some amazing examples of adaptations to water scarcity.
190
451000
3000
07:49
This is the Namibian fog-basking beetle,
191
454000
2000
07:51
and it's evolved a way of harvesting its own fresh water in a desert.
192
456000
3000
07:54
The way it does this is it comes out at night,
193
459000
2000
07:56
crawls to the top of a sand dune,
194
461000
2000
07:58
and because it's got a matte black shell,
195
463000
2000
08:00
is able to radiate heat out to the night sky
196
465000
2000
08:02
and become slightly cooler than its surroundings.
197
467000
2000
08:04
So when the moist breeze blows in off the sea,
198
469000
2000
08:06
you get these droplets of water forming on the beetle's shell.
199
471000
3000
08:09
Just before sunrise, he tips his shell up, the water runs down into his mouth,
200
474000
3000
08:12
has a good drink, goes off and hides for the rest of the day.
201
477000
2000
08:14
And the ingenuity, if you could call it that,
202
479000
2000
08:16
goes even further.
203
481000
2000
08:18
Because if you look closely at the beetle's shell,
204
483000
2000
08:20
there are lots of little bumps on that shell.
205
485000
2000
08:22
And those bumps are hydrophilic; they attract water.
206
487000
3000
08:25
Between them there's a waxy finish which repels water.
207
490000
3000
08:28
And the effect of this is that
208
493000
2000
08:30
as the droplets start to form on the bumps,
209
495000
2000
08:32
they stay in tight, spherical beads,
210
497000
2000
08:34
which means they're much more mobile
211
499000
2000
08:36
than they would be if it was just a film of water over the whole beetle's shell.
212
501000
3000
08:39
So even when there's only a small amount of moisture in the air,
213
504000
3000
08:42
it's able to harvest that very effectively and channel it down to its mouth.
214
507000
3000
08:45
So amazing example of an adaptation
215
510000
2000
08:47
to a very resource-constrained environment --
216
512000
2000
08:49
and in that sense, very relevant
217
514000
2000
08:51
to the kind of challenges we're going to be facing
218
516000
2000
08:53
over the next few years, next few decades.
219
518000
2000
08:55
We're working with the guy who invented the Seawater Greenhouse.
220
520000
2000
08:57
This is a greenhouse designed for arid coastal regions,
221
522000
3000
09:00
and the way it works is that you have this whole wall of evaporator grills,
222
525000
4000
09:04
and you trickle seawater over that
223
529000
2000
09:06
so that wind blows through, it picks up a lot of moisture
224
531000
2000
09:08
and is cooled in the process.
225
533000
2000
09:10
So inside it's cool and humid,
226
535000
2000
09:12
which means the plants need less water to grow.
227
537000
2000
09:14
And then at the back of the greenhouse,
228
539000
2000
09:16
it condenses a lot of that humidity as freshwater
229
541000
3000
09:19
in a process that is effectively identical to the beetle.
230
544000
3000
09:22
And what they found with the first Seawater Greenhouse that was built
231
547000
3000
09:25
was it was producing slightly more freshwater
232
550000
2000
09:27
than it needed for the plants inside.
233
552000
3000
09:30
So they just started spreading this on the land around,
234
555000
3000
09:33
and the combination of that and the elevated humidity
235
558000
2000
09:35
had quite a dramatic effect on the local area.
236
560000
3000
09:38
This photograph was taken on completion day,
237
563000
2000
09:40
and just one year later, it looked like that.
238
565000
2000
09:42
So it was like a green inkblot spreading out from the building
239
567000
3000
09:45
turning barren land back into biologically productive land --
240
570000
3000
09:48
and in that sense, going beyond sustainable design
241
573000
2000
09:50
to achieve restorative design.
242
575000
2000
09:52
So we were keen to scale this up
243
577000
2000
09:54
and apply biomimicry ideas to maximize the benefits.
244
579000
3000
09:57
And when you think about nature,
245
582000
2000
09:59
often you think about it as being all about competition.
246
584000
2000
10:01
But actually in mature ecosystems,
247
586000
2000
10:03
you're just as likely to find examples
248
588000
2000
10:05
of symbiotic relationships.
249
590000
2000
10:07
So an important biomimicry principle
250
592000
2000
10:09
is to find ways of bringing technologies together
251
594000
2000
10:11
in symbiotic clusters.
252
596000
2000
10:13
And the technology that we settled on
253
598000
2000
10:15
as an ideal partner for the Seawater Greenhouse
254
600000
2000
10:17
is concentrated solar power,
255
602000
2000
10:19
which uses solar-tracking mirrors to focus the sun's heat
256
604000
2000
10:21
to create electricity.
257
606000
2000
10:23
And just to give you some sense of the potential of CSP,
258
608000
3000
10:26
consider that we receive
259
611000
2000
10:28
10,000 times as much energy from the sun every year
260
613000
3000
10:31
as we use in energy from all forms --
261
616000
2000
10:33
10,000 times.
262
618000
2000
10:35
So our energy problems are not intractable.
263
620000
2000
10:37
It's a challenge to our ingenuity.
264
622000
2000
10:39
And the kind of synergies I'm talking about
265
624000
2000
10:41
are, firstly, both these technologies work very well in hot, sunny deserts.
266
626000
4000
10:45
CSP needs a supply of demineralized freshwater.
267
630000
3000
10:48
That's exactly what the Seawater Greenhouse produces.
268
633000
2000
10:50
CSP produces a lot of waste heat.
269
635000
2000
10:52
We'll be able to make use of all that to evaporate more seawater
270
637000
3000
10:55
and enhance the restorative benefits.
271
640000
2000
10:57
And finally, in the shade under the mirrors,
272
642000
2000
10:59
it's possible to grow all sorts of crops
273
644000
2000
11:01
that would not grow in direct sunlight.
274
646000
2000
11:03
So this is how this scheme would look.
275
648000
2000
11:05
The idea is we create this long hedge of greenhouses facing the wind.
276
650000
3000
11:08
We'd have concentrated solar power plants
277
653000
2000
11:10
at intervals along the way.
278
655000
2000
11:12
Some of you might be wondering what we would do with all the salts.
279
657000
3000
11:15
And with biomimicry, if you've got an underutilized resource,
280
660000
3000
11:18
you don't think, "How am I going to dispose of this?"
281
663000
2000
11:20
You think, "What can I add to the system to create more value?"
282
665000
3000
11:23
And it turns out
283
668000
2000
11:25
that different things crystallize out at different stages.
284
670000
2000
11:27
When you evaporate seawater, the first thing to crystallize out
285
672000
2000
11:29
is calcium carbonate.
286
674000
2000
11:31
And that builds up on the evaporators --
287
676000
2000
11:33
and that's what that image on the left is --
288
678000
2000
11:35
gradually getting encrusted with the calcium carbonate.
289
680000
2000
11:37
So after a while, we could take that out,
290
682000
2000
11:39
use it as a lightweight building block.
291
684000
2000
11:41
And if you think about the carbon in that,
292
686000
2000
11:43
that would have come out of the atmosphere, into the sea
293
688000
2000
11:45
and then locked away in a building product.
294
690000
2000
11:47
The next thing is sodium chloride.
295
692000
2000
11:49
You can also compress that into a building block,
296
694000
2000
11:51
as they did here.
297
696000
2000
11:53
This is a hotel in Bolivia.
298
698000
2000
11:55
And then after that, there are all sorts
299
700000
2000
11:57
of compounds and elements that we can extract,
300
702000
2000
11:59
like phosphates, that we need to get back into the desert soils to fertilize them.
301
704000
3000
12:02
And there's just about every element of the periodic table
302
707000
2000
12:04
in seawater.
303
709000
2000
12:06
So it should be possible to extract valuable elements
304
711000
2000
12:08
like lithium for high-performance batteries.
305
713000
3000
12:12
And in parts of the Arabian Gulf,
306
717000
3000
12:15
the seawater, the salinity is increasing steadily
307
720000
3000
12:18
due to the discharge of waste brine
308
723000
2000
12:20
from desalination plants.
309
725000
2000
12:22
And it's pushing the ecosystem close to collapse.
310
727000
3000
12:25
Now we would be able to make use of all that waste brine.
311
730000
2000
12:27
We could evaporate it
312
732000
2000
12:29
to enhance the restorative benefits
313
734000
2000
12:31
and capture the salts,
314
736000
2000
12:33
transforming an urgent waste problem into a big opportunity.
315
738000
3000
12:36
Really the Sahara Forest Project is a model
316
741000
2000
12:38
for how we could create zero-carbon food,
317
743000
3000
12:41
abundant renewable energy in some of the most water-stressed parts of the planet
318
746000
3000
12:44
as well as reversing desertification in certain areas.
319
749000
4000
12:48
So returning to those big challenges that I mentioned at the beginning:
320
753000
3000
12:51
radical increases in resource efficiency,
321
756000
2000
12:53
closing loops and a solar economy.
322
758000
2000
12:55
They're not just possible; they're critical.
323
760000
3000
12:58
And I firmly believe that studying the way nature solves problems
324
763000
3000
13:01
will provide a lot of the solutions.
325
766000
3000
13:04
But perhaps more than anything, what this thinking provides
326
769000
3000
13:07
is a really positive way of talking about sustainable design.
327
772000
2000
13:09
Far too much of the talk about the environment
328
774000
2000
13:11
uses very negative language.
329
776000
2000
13:13
But here it's about synergies and abundance and optimizing.
330
778000
3000
13:16
And this is an important point.
331
781000
2000
13:18
Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said,
332
783000
2000
13:20
"If you want to build a flotilla of ships,
333
785000
2000
13:22
you don't sit around talking about carpentry.
334
787000
2000
13:24
No, you need to set people's souls ablaze
335
789000
3000
13:27
with visions of exploring distant shores."
336
792000
2000
13:29
And that's what we need to do, so let's be positive,
337
794000
3000
13:32
and let's make progress with what could be
338
797000
2000
13:34
the most exciting period of innovation we've ever seen.
339
799000
2000
13:36
Thank you.
340
801000
2000
13:38
(Applause)
341
803000
2000

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Michael Pawlyn - Architect
Michael Pawlyn takes cues from nature to make new, sustainable architectural environments.

Why you should listen

Michael Pawlyn established the architecture firm Exploration in 2007 to focus on environmentally sustainable projects that take their inspiration from nature.

Prior to setting up the company, Pawlyn worked with the firm Grimshaw for ten years and was central to the team that radically re-invented horticultural architecture for the Eden Project. He was responsible for leading the design of the Warm Temperate and Humid Tropics Biomes and the subsequent phases that included proposals for a third Biome for plants from dry tropical regions. In 1999 he was one of five winners in A Car-free London, an ideas competition for strategic solutions to the capital’s future transport needs and new possibilities for urban spaces. In September 2003 he joined an intensive course in nature-inspired design at Schumacher College, run by Amory Lovins and Janine Benyus. He has lectured widely on the subject of sustainable design in the UK and abroad.

His Sahara Forest Project, covered in this TEDTalk, recently won major funding >>

More profile about the speaker
Michael Pawlyn | Speaker | TED.com