Pawlyn - Biomimicry in architecture

The seeds of my interest in biomimicry were sown in my teenage years, but emerged fully when I participated in a one-week course at Schumacher College led by Amory Lovins and Janine Benyus in 2003. I am grateful to both the course leaders for the generosity with which they shared their knowledge during what was a truly inspiring week that changed the path of my career permanently. Two other pioneers of biomimicry, Dayna Baumeister and Julian Vincent, became mentors for me while writing this book. Julian provided highly valued input throughout, including numerous readings of drafts, a wealth of important references and corrections to my biological blunders. Dayna emboldened me at key stages with inspirational comments. The photographer Kelly Hill has been a constant source of support both as my wife and in bringing her skilled eye to the sourcing of images. My editorial consultant, Alison McDougall-Weil, helped immeasurably in reworking the structure and focus of the second edition and offered a wealth of constructive suggestions that improved the text.

I am grateful to all those who have written illuminating books about biomimetics (including all their names here would start to feel like a rerun of the bibliography!) and to others, like Andy Middleton and Graham Dodd, whom I have had the great pleasure of teaching with and learning from. Many individuals have been generous with their time and knowledge in discussing ideas for the book, sharing thoughts or reading drafts including: Patrick Bellew, Karen Blincoe, David Crooks, David de Rothschild, Herbert Girardet, Brian Goodwin, Petra Gruber, Frederic Hauge, Peter Head, Geoff Hollington, David Kirkland, Anna Liu, Dame Ellen MacArthur, Tom McKeag, William Myers, Leonora Oppenheim, Anna Maria Orru, Charlie Paton, Yaniv Peer, Jonathon Porritt, Neil Thomas, Mike Tonkin, Bill Watts and Graham Wiles. I never met David MacKay, but he did us all a great service in writing his thoroughly researched and wonderfully readable book of numbers. My chapter on energy owes a lot to his work.

I would like to thank Tim Smit and Grimshaw for the opportunities I had while working there and for the input of the Green R&D group, which was a wonderful forum for ideas. Somewhat late, I must thank my biology teacher at King James College, Alan Jones, who did so much to convey his enthusiasm for the subject and unwittingly helped me on my career path. Similarly, I am grateful to my parents for their art and engineering nurture and to my uncle, whose gift of the Club of Romes book Blueprint for Survival in my early teenage years provided another influential strand to my future development.

I would also like to thank the countless scientists who continue to reveal biological secrets and those who work in environmentally related fields, such as climate science, with the highest integrity and do so in spite of the media assault on their findings. It often seems that, 200 years after the age of the Enlightenment, we are entering the Endarkenment, in which unqualified sceptics are considered as reliable as scientists on matters of climatology, and monomathic economists create political policies with no regard for natural capital or long-term value. We will need polymaths and inspired collaboration more than ever during the decades ahead.

MICHAEL PAWLYN

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