Reflecting on 5 Weeks of Observation at Mount Sutro

What has changed about my place?
Nature is cyclic and in stable non-equilibrium. Which means there is constant change. Both with the seasons and with longer term changes in climate and weather and shifting balances in biotic factors such as predators, viruses and fungus.

Today I went back to the same exact spot I sat for my first observation a little over a month ago. The place felt more lush and over grown. I took pictures to compare with my first visit. Just looking at those pictures I can see that the grass is a little taller but not as much as I expected.There are some new plants that were not apparent during my first visit. They may have been under the cover of the other plants and have since grown and emerged. This furry plant is one of them. I wonder what function the fuzzy covering conveys? Is it a strategy for protection? From predators? or maybe from temperature fluctuations? Does it prevent adhesion of some kind?
I look at the shiny leaved vine that I wrote about in the first post. It seems to be suffering from an attack of some sort. There are these brown radiating circles with a hole in their center. I wonder if the foamy discharge I noticed on the under sides of the leaves last time was the cause. I could find no evidence for this. But turning over some more leaves I noticed that some of the leaves have fresh deposits of foam. Though non of the leaves had both the dark circles and the foam. Further the foam carrying leaves were a much lighter shade of green. Is there some reason that the insect is avoiding the darker leaves? Is it because of the infection? Or do the light green leaves fit the requirements better? Interesting implications here.

This time I also touched the foam and it has a smooth slick feeling and no smell or at least non that I could detect.

What has changed about me?

As I reflect back on the 5 weeks of observation pondering this question, I am not sure. I have always enjoyed time spent in quiet observation out doors and I definitely continue to enjoy this. I really appreciate the extra lens of biomimicry in this pursuit. I find that now beyond just being surprised, intrigued and delighted by nature I am asking so what? What is nature achieving and how? How can this shape my approach to challenges I face.

It has been a long time since I have systematically returned to the same outdoor space every week. This systematic approach is a really beneficial change that allows the identification of patterns over time. I think this is essential to a deep understanding of any natural system. I am excited to continue this as I move forward with my Masters Thesis Project.

Thanks,

Lorris

Evaluating the Good Garden

Evaluating the Good Garden based on Life's Principles

This post will be a systematic evaluation of the Good Garden self watering multi level garden against the 6 major principles on the Life's Principles check list. The goal being to understand how well this design meets these principles and thus how well it is suited to life on this planet.

1) Is the design locally attuned and responsive?

The good garden is a resourceful design that passively gathers resources including water and nutrients. Local opportunities and limitations will drive the look, size and species composition of the resulting garden. It uses shape to gather and wick water as well as for water storage and providing habitat. Micro shades in the material will generate hydrophobic and hydrophilic areas. It uses free local energy to harvest water for irrigation.

The design does not specify materials. The design would be stronger if it used locally available and abundant materials. The water gathering surface and wicking areas could be made of locally sourced and recycled plastics. The base could use waste cement or bricks from building demolitions or construction projects. The design would be further strengthened if it used modular parts that could be assembled in a multitude of configurations depending on where it was being installed.

2) Does the design integrate cyclic processes?

The passive irrigation is a cyclic process that takes advantage of local seasonal shifts. Local feedback loops would decide what organisms flourish in the garden.

Again the design would be stronger if it took into account materials and material configuration, if it was disassemblable and reusable or reconfigurable.

The back yard at my apartment. Not a very resilient system. Requires lots or care and chemicals.

3) Is the design resilient?

The design encourages the adoption of passive gardening where by the make up of the garden is in constant flux (dynamic non-equilibrium) as the design experiences disturbances at various scales, from seasonal fluctuations in weather to climate change over a longer scale. This design will encourage back yard evolution. Allowing users to be amazed by the adaptation, co-evolution and idea generation of nature.

The design would be stronger if it integrated some way for the shape of the structure to be modified by the gardens constituent species over time.

4) Does the design optimize rather than maximize?

The Good Garden is multifunctional in that it provides s substrate for the design as well as condensing water, catching rain water, distributing water and capturing nutrients. All these functions are accomplished passively requiring energy only for initial manufacture. It gathers and reuses the products of it's constituent organisms.

The design would be stronger if it were recyclable. It should be designed for disassembly, reuse and reconfiguration.

5) Does the design use benign manufacturing?

The good garden would be built to shape. It is constructed from materials from a safe subset of the periodic table. Since it would support organisms and might be used to produce food it is essential the it be non-toxic.

The design would be stronger if it were self assembling at ambient temperatures and ambient pressures.

Another pic of my back yard. Imagine a more interdependent system.

6) Does the design leverage its interdependence in the system?

Designed to foster encourage and support it's own ecosystem, Good Garden gets high marks in this category. It will result in your own back yard symbiotic, cooperative and community based garden system. Creating new niches for a dynamic set of organisms. This system will be self-organized and maintained by the sun's locally available energy.

Conclusion:

The design is strong in categories 1,3,4 and 6. It meet some of the requirements in categories 2 and 5 but could improve drastically in these areas.

Notes from San Diego Zoo Biomimicry Conference

San Diego Zoo Biomimicry Conference

Tom Mckeag: Lessons from an egg

· Ostrich can grow to 350lb and produce largest birth egg.

· Largest single cell.

· Elegant elemental shape.

· Chucked on a lathe will run true. Circular cross sections ellipsoidal shape.

· Egg solves contradictions.

· Egg smallest in comparison to the size of the animal that produces it.

· Protect and open.

· Keep out dangerous stuff and let in oxygen.

· Come out and rotate but not roll away.

· Structural solutions. “Nature surfs for free” Air pocket on end nearest to center of gravity.

· Nature operates on multiple levels/scales. Domed and palisade structures protect against compression. Macro and micro scales.

Jane Fulton Suri: Why biomimicry? Why now?

· To design like life is to seek harmonies

· “Nature inspired design is a logical evolution of human centered design”

· Why now? “We are at an inflection point between realizing we are approaching limitations and on the brink of exciting discoveries.”

· Human centered design not just asking what people want but observing, being curious.

· Human centered design is not enough. Not dealing with social and environmental impacts

· For people who have always felt a connection to the environment biomimicry allows people to bring this to work.

· Evolution of design ergonomics-to-cognitive and social science approach-to-anthropology and ethnography-to the next phase-biology and ecology biomimicry.

· Biomimicry helps overcome limitations. Metaphor from how fungus and trees are symbiotic to structure for U.S. green building council.

· Biomimicry extends human centered design. Relies on curiosity and openness just like human centered design.

· Emerging opportunities. Developments in life sciences at cellular, molecular and mechanical levels raise ethical questions and opportunities. Like “what would it mean to nurture living probiotics? What would a deeper relationship with bacteria that live on us look like?”

· Social media tech changing how we gather and distribute information. Similar to bottom up sensory reception in nature. Developing an ecology of ideas. –open ideo-

· Tim brown says it is a shift from Newtonian physics thinking to Darwinian evolution thinking.

· How you frame a problem effects what info people want and their design solutions. Metaphors hugely powerful. Study on the solutions when presented crime as a beast or a virus.

· At inflection point of limitations and new possibilities. Add to human centered approach how would nature…..?

· Nature is a place to look for solutions.

· Nature solutions are sustainable

· Nature fascinates, unifies and motivates

· Nature is inspiring at many levels materials and metaphors.

· Nature provides new ways of thinking.

Dr. Lyn Reeser: biomimicry and money

· By 2025 report states biomimicry could bring in 30 billion per year. Plus savings of 150 billion in less destruction and CO2 reductions.

· “biomimicry is a game changer another major revolution”

· Wood welding and bone welding.

· Biomatrica - dry storage.

· Biomimicry bridge collaboration in San Diego is very focused. This area is going to prove the concept in the next few years.

· “Not about sustainability it’s about better products and services. I can’t sell sustainability. The sustainability is a beneficial by product”

· “Don’t be afraid to put together things that don’t match at all.”

James Burke: Culture of Scarcity and the history and future of innovation

· “Descartes reductionism has led to a descent into desecration of nature” There is an understanding that we need to stop and listen to nature.

· How will we deal with abundance? Possibly panarchy, how ecosystems function. Capable of self realignment in face of shock.

David Schenone: Biomimicry at the Nike Innovation kitchen

· Asafa Powel psychology wanted to look really fast. Cheetah as his animal. Analysis of the spots to come to a pattern for his signature spike.

· Fly wire from the vein structure of plants with really large leaves. Allows a large reduction in the amounts of material in a shoe.

· Venus fly trap to a visual machine for customizing shoes in an interactive way while customers wait.

· Nike free from the human foot.

· This whole journey started with his mentor who was on the design team for the 77 firebird. The rims sold the car, shape from a pine cone.

Tom McKeag: How Biomimicry

· Observe principles, then abstract and apply

· Nature builds to shape

· Always think about: Material, Information and Energy

· “surf for free”

Geckos: advancements other than feet

· Chromatophores and melanophores

· Autonomy some can re-grow their tails. Cells undergo de-differentiation and then redifferentiation.

· The spinal cord does not reform. Cool applications for moving information through nodes. How does the tail still function?

Robert Full: UC Berkley on polypedal labs

· Entering the age of biology.

· Nature tends to be small, curved human tech large, straight.

· “as human technologies take on more natural characteristics nature has more to teach us”

· Engineers have goals nature does not

· Questions to ask: 1) is it based on a principle, rather than a blind copy or a weak metaphor. 2) Is this the best organism for inspiration? 3) Are you understanding the problem at the right scale? Organism’s way to complicate and no design plans. Simplify just enough surf robots 9 joints to 2, muscle synergies. 4) Is this design compromised some way? Understand Developmental constraints and functional constraints.

· “Natures technology the only know alternative to our own.”

· Relative leg stiffness the same for all animals.

· Boston dynamics, robots rex 6 legs.

· Multi functional materials integrated and flexible. Artificial muscles and soft robotics.

· Effective interaction with the environment. Gecko feet vanderwals. Gecko glides and steer tail.

1. Demand a deeper understanding

2. Do transformative and research and be curious

3. Be mutualistic and interdisciplinary

4. Redesign education for collaboration

5. Preserve the environment for the massive innovation source it is

Life's Principles

Life's Principles: A Low growing wide branching tree

This morning I headed out to my spot in the park under gray overcast skies. I sat down in an area dominated by these interesting low growing trees. I don't think these trees are actually that low but compared to the giant eucalyptus and spruce trees in the park they look tiny. As I sat their I decided that these trees were like apartment buildings in a city. They were providing homes to many of the organisms in this system. From birds and squirrels to insects, lichens and mosses. As such I decided to dedicate this post to these organisms and some of the ways they seem to exemplify natures principles.

my spot

1) Optimizing rather than Maximising:These trees grow relatively close to the ground in some places their trunks grow parallel to the hill side. They seem to be seeking sun light. I peculate that this strategy, of reaching and spreading allows them to really efficiently harvest sunlight. The are very efficiently "fitting form to function".-Fitting form to function to optimize available space could be applied to the solar industry or what about designing cities to maximise horizontal and vertical space to ensure every one access to sunlight, fresh air, water and other resources while drastically reducing our foot print.2) Leveraging Interdependence:The branches, leaves, bark and stabilized hill side, that these trees provide are a home to many plants and animals. The trees in turn rely on nutrients provided from the break down of the "waste" these animals and plants produce.-This kind of systems thinking could help us redefine our systems for manufacturing, distribution and consumption. possibly resulting communities that function in cycles with this type of interdependence where local resources (possibly waste), is manufacture locally for local consumption.
3) Benign manufacturing: This tree constructs it self from available, renewable and non-toxic resources at ambient temperature. This tree does this because it has no choice.-Neither do we! We are going to make this planet uninhabitable, even for us, if we don't follow natures example and manufacture every thing in benign ways.

Leaf buds

4) Locally attuned and responsive: This tree times it's growth to correspond with availability of resources such as sunlight and water. Both are readily available now as the days get longer and spring brings copious rain. These trees are covered in buds and new leaves, very "resourceful and opportunistic". Even as I write this it starts to rain.

raindrops on my note book

-Just in time manufacturing can allow manufacturers to respond to demand and avoid over stock. As 3D printers and other rapid production techniques advance we will be more and more able to respond really quickly to changing local demands.

5) Integrates cyclic process: This tree recaptures and utilizes the "waste' of many organisms it supports. Even it's own leaves, which are broken down by other organisms, provide nutrients that the tree uses to produce new leaves. Over and over again.
-Much like benign manufacturing, cyclic process must be integrated into all our production flows. Our insistence an maximising through put of resources in our economies means we are on a trajectory to run out of resources. Mining our landfills for resources and hopefully putting these resources into cycles.

6) Resilient: The leaves of these trees are a prefect example of redundancy. Many, many leaves means the tree can afford to loss some with out catastrophe.
-Imagine a solar power system for your house that only needed half of its cells to provide enough energy for your needs. How much more reliable would system like this be than one that had to run all it's cells? Storms, clouds no problem!

Thanks

Biomatrica case study

Biomimetic Case Study

This week it was difficult for me to choose which example of biomimicry I wanted to present here. Last week I attended the San Diego Zoo Biomimicry Conference. Two solid days hearing and talking about biomimicry. There were examples from educators, design firms like IDEO and corporations like Qualcom and Nike. Biomimicry applied to the tech industry, the sports industry, biotech and medical industries. Alas I had to choose one.

Biomatrica

Biomatrica is a biotech company that provides storage and stabilization solutions for biological materials. Instead of shipping on dry ice and storage in freezers, biomatrica's products allow room temperature storage. This allows for reduced energy use due to the elimination of refrigeration. Shipping becomes much cheaper and easier. For example Stanford University estimates that switching to room temperature stability would save them 16 million dollars over 10 years. The fact the no cold chain is required makes the chances of sample damage much less. This has applications not only in academic lab settings but also for forensics labs. In addition this type of product could greatly aid the distribution and access to medications in the third world where cold storage is often impossible.http://www.biomatrica.com/technology.php

This product was inspired by anydrobiosis, the ability of some organisms to survive being completely dried out for long periods of time. Tartigrades are an example of this type of organism. The creators of SampleMatrix the technology sold by Biomatrica also looked at the Resurrection Fern and Brine shrimp among others.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ-mqNKvdcaI1sdySRNjq1X67IvbyCmWCh7ywQxfhD0TdB5jyNckC0PTIs7CEFhs-Olxa3vBOhhWVNkmte7MwdgxhUn2wXkELHCJHO8Om-76L7Gt5hmCEbIPi7cE2-gtzZELuKun8zPcGO/s1600/after+and+before.JPG

Rolf Muller and Judy Muller-Cohn a husband and wife team of laboratory scientists needed their own solution for sample storage. They were inspired by sea monkeys at a toy store. Sea monkeys are actually dried up brine shrimp that come to life when water is added. They studied the mechanisms that make this possible in nature and built a company, Biomatrica, around their discovery.

http://pistolshrimp.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/tardigrade.jpg

The amazing function behind this innovation is Anydrobiosis, or life without water. Tartigrades for example have been know to completely dry out for as many as 120 years and amazingly when water is added they come to life. Additional information can be found at Asknature.org as well as on Biometrica's website.

Observing for Function

My trip to the park this morning was a little soggy, thought the rain conveniently cleared up as soon as I was done. Now looks like the rest of the day is going to be beautiful.

This massive Eucalyptus captured my attention. As I approached I noticed that half the tree had died and fallen. This huge tree is really only half the size it once was. As I got closer I could see the ground littered with strips of bark, most rolled up into tube like shapes. I looked up into the tree and could see the bark in the process of peeling off the trunk. The wind even blew some down while I was there. I thought that this bark peeling is the STRATEGY the tree is using to protect itself. Protection being the FUNCTION. The tree might be applying the strategy of shedding bark to maintain it's physical integrity.
Why does the tree need this function? Here in San Francisco the climate is fairly warm and fairly wet, very conducive to many forms of life both plant and animal. The smooth sides of the eucalyptus could reduce the opportunities for insects to attack the tree. The bark shedding could be simply a way to maintain this smoothness as the tree grows.

Though what if as insects or fungus attacked the tree and penetrated the bark the bark simply peeled off and feel to the ground. This could prevent the invaders from penetrating to and impeding the function of the vascular system.
Many organisms employ the strategy of shedding their outer layers. Even us humans are constantly shedding skin and hair. Both insects and reptiles shed their outer layers as they grow. All organisms have the need to maintain their physical integrity against both biotic and abiotic factors.

Implications for sustainable design are likely numerous. This type of strategy might be applied to structures to prevent biotic invasion and loss of structural integrity. In this way we would avoid having to apply pesticides or other chemical or high energy mechanical means of protection. I was also thinking that this idea could be applied such that high wear products such as bearings or pistons that require a smooth surface could constantly shed and regenerate the wear surface. This would greatly increase the life of the product. The less often we have to replace these the better.
The first place I went for more information was asknature.org which yielded some information about the fire resistance of Eucalyptus. PDF version below.
Near my house I have the Sf botanical gardens and the California Academy of Science. Both these places are great resources for biological information.

Thanks for following.

Lorris

Biomimicry Basics 2

Bikes And Cycles:

Life works in cycles. My bike is propelled by a cycle. This is an extremely efficient and robust mode of transportation. The way I service my bike is in cycles. The routs that my bike transports me on are cycles, too and from places.

http://antbikemike.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/basket-bike-08-014.jpg

The manufacturing of my bicycle is not cyclical. Even it's parts are not made in cyclical ways. When a tire wears out it is discarded and while there are attempts to recycle tires they generally are down cycles. That is the recycled material is less useful than the original and still destined for the landfill. A bike manufactured as a part of an industrial ecology, where all it's materials were in a cycle of their own would be much more sustainable.

http://www.socalgreenrealestateblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/industrial-ecology.jpg

I also wish my bike could be a part of more of my weekly cycles, too and from school with tools, the grocery store or even longer trips like vacations. Maybe a bike like this.

From huntercycles.com

Thanks