'Architectural Design in Nature' - second webinar in HRI Bioinspiration Series hosted by Dr Alberto Pugnale and Dr Annmarie Brennan
This is the second conversation in the HRI BioInspiration series on the theme of “Architectural Design Inspired by Nature”, featuring conversation with Professor Jan Kippers and Professor John Frazer.
Bioinspiration involves taking principles from biological systems and applying them to technological and design problems. As global challenges become more complex, we’re increasingly drawing inspiration from biological systems to find new solutions.
The BioInspiration Hallmark Research Initiative exists to enhance innovation and impact by enabling convergence between the biological and physical sciences, engineering and design. This requires collaboration between practitioners in diverse fields including physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, design, architecture, evolutionary biology and ecology.
This webinar series involves a series of conversations with interdisciplinary academics across a wide range of topics regarding architecture, design, and science in nature. Bioinspiration is an emerging area of research associated with design thinking by analogy in architecture, engineering and industrial design. Conversation Two, facilitated by ACAHUCH members Dr Alberto Pugnale and Dr Annmarie Brennan, involves discussion with Professor Jan Knippers and Professor John Frazer on the inclusion of different approaches of BioInspiration in Architectural Design .
Professor Jan Knippers, Director of the “Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design” at the University of Stuttgart. He is also a practising consulting engineer, and in 2001 he co-founded “Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering” with offices in Stuttgart, Berlin and New York. In 2018 he founded “Jan Knippers Engineering” to focus on innovative projects from conception to completion, working at the intersection of research and practice. Jan is also author of several books and scientific papers, and is a member of advisory boards, such as the German Science Foundation. From 2014 to 2019 Jan Knippers was the lead coordinator of the DFG collaborative research centre: “Biological Design and Integrative Structures”. Since 2019 he is Vice Rector for Research at the University of Stuttgart and Deputy Director of the Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture”.
Professor John Frazer, Author of the seminal book, “An Evolutionary Architecture”, and a key founder and protagonist of architectural computation, having pioneered interactive systems for the first intelligent building. He is currently Professor of Evolutionary Digital Design at the European Graduate School. Previously he was Swire Chair Professor and Head of the School of Design in Hong Kong and then Professor of Design Science and Head of the School of Design in Queensland and previously Professor and Head of School in Ulster having started his academic career with a lectureship at Cambridge University and then the Architectural Association. He founded and funded Design research centres in Ulster, Hong Kong and Brisbane where he pursued his research interest in Architecture as a living system.
More information on the Hallmark Research Initiative 'BioInspiration' under the auspices of the University of Melbourne Faculty of Science, Melbourne School of Engineering, and Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning can be found here.