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“An elytron is very delicate and super lightweight, because after all, the beetle still needs to fly,” says Achim Menges, an architect and professor at the University of Stuttgart. “At the same time it’s very robust and exceptionally high performance.” 
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"Royal College of Art design student Chao Chen has developed a revolutionary new building material that responds to the presence of water. After observing the hydro-sensitive behavior of pine cones, which open and close depending upon their exposure to water, Chen has developed a wood laminate material that similarly bends and flexes in response to atmospheric humidity, soil moisture or rain. Applications for the technology include shelters that seal up when it rains and building cladding that opens to let in more light on a dull, drizzly day but closes to block out heat when the weather is hot and dry."
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"Biological systems often have the ability to adapt to their environments. They harness external atmospheric stimuli, and as a result, triggers are activated which might result in kinematic shape or chemical changes to a given system or plant. Performance challenges – when pitted against a series of resource limitations like humidity or lack of water – can provoke complex and multi-layered structural changes in plants, and nature regularly makes use of various strategies and materials to deal with those challenges.[...] University of Stuttgart Professor Achim Menges, a registered architect and the founding director of the Institute for Computational Design, is also a visiting professor in architecture at Harvard University, and his practice and research are devoted to creating integral design processes at the nexus of “morphogenetic design computation, biomimetic engineering and computer aided manufacturing."
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From creating breathable metals to copying how animals cool their homes, architects and designers are increasingly using the principles of biomimicry in their work. Christopher DeWolf takes a look at how the discipline is evolving.
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"Inside a bud, a flower’s petals lie in wait, a tight bundle of compressed tissue. When the conditions are right, they burst forth, blooming in an impressive display of geometry and color. During this opening period, which may last as long as 7 days or be as brief as 5 minutes, the cells that make up the petals may expand to 20 to 50 times their initial length. This great and relatively sudden inflation accounts for most of the flower’s shape. Some cells within the petal grow more than others and this differential growth is responsible for the 3D form of the petals. [...] Multi-material 3D printing may give us a way to incorporate such movements into the architecture of products and buildings. The provocatively named discipline of 4D-printing explores fabricating shape changing materials by means of 3D-printing. The differential growth of flowers suggests a way of designing such shape changing products."
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