Thomas Speck – författare

Die Natur war schon immer eine Inspirationsquelle für die Gestaltung menschlicher Umwelt. Die Analyse biologischer Konstruktionen kann nicht nur zu verblüffenden technischen Lösungen führen, sie kann auch die Architektur beflügeln.

Bionik ist ein faszinierendes Grenzgebiet zwischen Grundlagenforschung und praktischer Anwendung: Biologen, Chemiker, Physiker, Mineralogen und Paläontologen kommen ins Gespräch mit Materialwissenschaftlern, Ingenieuren und Architekten und übertragen ihre Erkenntnisse in Architektur und Bauwesen.

An einer Vielzahl von Beispielen aus der Praxis verfolgt die reich illustrierte Einführung den Weg von der Erkenntnis, wie etwas funktioniert, über die Abstraktion, etwa in Computermodellen, und den Bau erster Prototypen bis zur funktionierenden Fertigung und Produktion.

Nature has always been a source of inspiration for the design of the human environment. The analysis of biological constructions can not only lead to astonishing technical solutions but can also inspire the design of architecture.

Bionics is a fascinating border area between pure research and practical application: biologists, chemists, physicists, mineralogists, and paleontologists meet up with material scientists, engineers, and architects and transfer their knowledge to architecture and construction.

Using numerous practical examples, this richly illustrated introduction traces the process from the understanding of how something functions, to abstraction—for example in computer models—and the construction of initial prototypes, through to fully functional manufacture and production.

This book comprises a first survey of the Collaborative Research Center SFB-TRR 141 ‘Biological Design and Integrative Structures – Analysis, Simulation and Implementation in Architecture’, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft since October 2014. The SFB-TRR 141 provides a collaborative framework for architects and engineers from the University of Stuttgart, biologists and physicists from the University of Freiburg and geoscientists and evolutionary biologists from the University of Tübingen. The programm is conceptualized as a dialogue between the disciplines and is based on the belief that that biomimetic research has the potential to lead everyone involved to new findings far beyond his individual reach. During the last few decades, computational methods have been introduced into all fields of science and technology. In architecture, they enable the geometric differentiation of building components and allow the fabrication of porous or fibre-based materials with locallyadjusted physical and chemical properties. Recent developments in simulation technologies focus on multi-scale models and the interplay of mechanical phenomena at various hierarchical levels. In the natural sciences, a multitude of quantitative methods covering diverse hierarchical levels have been introduced. These advances in computational methods have opened a new era in biomimetics: local differentiation at various scales, the main feature of natural constructions, can for the first time not only be analysed, but to a certain extent also be transferred to building construction. Computational methodologies enable the direct exchange of information between fields of science that, until now, have been widely separated. As a result they lead to a new approach to biomimetic research, which, hopefully, contributes to a more sustainable development in architecture and building construction.