DFG Funds Research Centre for Architecture and Biomimetics
The DFG (German Research Foundation) decided on May 15th to support the transregional Collaborative Research Centre TRR 141 ‘Biological Design and Integrative Structures’ with a grant of 9.3 million Euro for four years. The initiative focuses on the analysis and abstraction of design and construction principles in nature and their implementation in architecture.
Recent developments in computational design, simulation and fabrication offer new possibilities for analysing natural constructions and for transferring their principles to the macro-scale of building construction and other fields of technology. The aim of the Centre is not only to increase performance, but also to transfer the inherent ecological properties of natural structures, i.e. the effective usage of limited resources and closed material cycles, to architecture and building technologies. An interdisciplinary team of architects and engineers from the University of Stuttgart, biologists and physicists of the University of Freiburg and geo- scientists and evolutionary biologists of the University of Tübingen will analyse and simulate multi-layered, hierarchically structured and finely tuned types of morphology taken from natural structures and develop strategies for implementing them in architecture. The results will provide the foundations for further investigations and a more detailed understanding of the studied biological systems. The project aims to contribute to the conceptualization and foundation of biomimetics as a scientific methodology in the context of architecture and building technologies.
ICD Stuttgart is currently engaging in 3 projects.
- Project A07: The Skeleton of the Sand Dollar as a Biological Model for Segmented Shells in Building Construction
- Project A08: Continuous Fused Deposition Modelling of Architectural Envelopes Based on the Shell Formation of Molluscs
- Project B02: Evolutionary Processes Driving Biological Variation and Diversity as Models for Exploratory Digital Design Tools in Architecture
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