because our houses and other structures have their metaphysical, representational and aesthetic dimensions which necessarily compromise performance in the strict terms of biological survival. These metaphysical concerns and aspirations frequently overrule the requirements of biological and ecological survival.
Animal constructions are structurally efficient, and natural selection has gradually optimized both the forms of structures and the use of materials. The hexagonal cell structure of the bee with its specific angles is the mathematically optimum structure for storing honey. The vertically suspended cell wall of the bee with its two layers of cells, built back‐to‐back with one‐half a cell's shift in the position of the cell walls, to create a continuous three‐dimensional folded structure made of pyramidal units at the boundary surface, is structurally ingenious.
The inner cell of the abalone is twice as tough as human‐made high‐tech ceramics; instead of breaking, the shell deforms under stress like a metal. Mussel adhesive works underwater and sticks to anything, whereas rhino horn repairs itself although it contains no living cells. All these miraculous materials are produced in body temperatures without toxic by‐products and they return back to the cycle of nature.
The extraordinary strength of spider drag line is the most impressive example of the technical miracles of evolutionary processes. None of the man‐made metals or high‐strength fibres of today can come close to the combined strength and energy‐absorbing elasticity of spider drag line. The tensile strength of the line spun by the spider is more than three times that of steel. The elasticity of spider drag line is even more amazing; its extension at break point is 229% as compared with the 8% of steel. The spider silk consists of small crystallites embedded in a rubbery matrix of organic polymer – a composite material developed, perhaps, a couple of hundred million years before our current age of composite materials.
Two thousand years ago, wasps taught the Chinese how to make paper, and the nesting chambers of potter wasps are believed to have served as models of clay jars for the American Indians. The Chinese learned 4600 years ago, how to use the fine silk line spun by the larva of the silk moth, and even today we are using several million kilograms of raw silk annually. In addition to being used as material for fine cloth, silk thread was earlier used to produce fishing rods and strings of musical instruments.
How could we take advantage of the inventions of animals today and what lessons could we learn from a study of animal building behaviour?
The slow evolution of animal artefacts can be compared with the processes of tradition in traditional human societies. Tradition is a force of cohesion that slows down change and ties individual invention securely to patterns of tradition, established through endless time and the test of life. It is this interaction of change and rigorous testing by forces of selection that is lost in human architecture of the industrial era. We believe in individuality, novelty and invention. Human architecture evolves more under forces of cultural and social values than forces of the natural world.
The role of aesthetic choice is important, as it is a guiding principle in human structures. Whether aesthetic choice exists in the animal world is arguable, but it is unarguable that the principle of pleasure guides even the lowest animal behaviour and the transformation of physical pleasure to aesthetic pleasure could well be rather unnoticeable. Regardless of the question of the intentionality of beauty in animal constructions the beauty of superb performance and causality of animal architecture gives pleasure to the human eye and mind.
I will give one example of the human use of animal inventions reported in The Economist.16 David Kaplan and his colleagues at Tufts University have succeeded to extend the range of properties of spider silk beyond those found in nature. By shuffling the order and number of the hydrophilic, hydrophobic and structure – organizing sections of DNA, and then recruiting bacteria to turn the resulting artificial genes into proteins, the research team has turned out about two dozen novel forms of silk. Some of the tougher and more water‐resistant forms of silk might be employed to impregnate synthetic fibres and lightweight materials called hydrogels to make them stronger and waterproof. The more resilient materials that resulted could then be used to coat and toughen surfaces, strengthen the biologically friendly plastics employed in surgery, and create strong, lightweight components for use in aircraft.
Material sciences which also develop novel materials also for architectural purposes that can be automatically be responsive to prevailing environmental conditions, such as temperature, moisture and light, in the way that live tissue adjusts its functions, are becoming important in the scientific development of human building. Analogies and models from the biological world can be decisive, as in the case of the development of self‐cleaning glass, based on observations of the surface structure of the giant water lily and practically invisible nano‐technology.
It is also becoming increasingly essential that our own constructions are seen in their anthropological, socio‐economic and ecological frameworks, in addition to the traditional aesthetic sphere of the architectural discipline. It is equally important that our aesthetic understanding of architecture is expanded to the biocultural foundations of human behaviour and construction. The field of bio‐psychology is an example of such an extension. As builders, we could learn from studying the gradual and slow development and adaptation of animal constructions over the course of endless time.
Animal constructions open up an important window on the processes of evolution, ecology and adaptation. Ants have the biggest biomass and as a consequence of their skills in adapting to a wide variety of environmental conditions they are the most numerous and widespread of animals, including man. They are among the most highly social of all creatures, and the study of ants has produced insights into the origins of altruistic behaviour.
Architecture and the Human Nature: Searching for a Sustainable Metaphor (2011)
I do not support any romantic bio‐morphic architecture. I advocate an architecture that arises from a respect of nature in its complexity, not only its visual characteristics, and from empathy and loyalty to all forms of life and a humility about our own destiny.
Indeed, architecture cannot regress; all life forms and strategies of nature keep developing and refining. The magnitude of our problems calls for extremely refined, responsive and subtle technologies.
It is becoming evident that we have distanced ourselves too far from nature with grave consequences. The research of the Finnish allergiologist Tari Haahtela has shown convincingly that many of the so‐called ‘civilization diseases’, such as all allergies, diabetes, depression, many types of cancer, and even obesity, are consequences of living in too sterile and ‘artificial’ environments. We have destroyed the natural bacterial habitats in our intestines. This specialist in allergies tells us that he has never met an allergy patient ‘with earth under his fingernails’.17
Anonymity
→ humility; personality cult
Voices of Tranquility: Silence in Art and Architecture (2011)
In today's consumerist culture we are misled to believe that the qualities of art and architecture arise from expression of the artist's or architect's persona. However, as the philosopher Maurice Merleau‐Ponty writes: ‘We do not come to look at a work of art, we come to look at the world according to it’.18 In a late interview Balthus, one of the greatest figurative painters of last century, makes a thought‐provoking comment on artistic expression: ‘Modernity, which began in the true sense with the Renaissance, determined the tragedy of art. The artist emerged as an individual and the traditional way of painting disappeared. From then on, the artist sought to express his inner world, which is a limited universe: he tried to place his personality in power and used paintings as a means of self‐expression.
