The Art of Engineering Bio-Inspired Adaptable Structures

What if the solutions to a lot of our problems could be found in nature? With the invention of the airplane, the problem of how to transport people quickly over long distances and over large bodies of water without using boats was solved by mimicking a vehicle after a bird. In much the same way, if buildings and other infrastructure were modeled after structures found in nature, wouldn’t they be more resilient, sustainable, and adaptable? This is exactly what assistant professor in Civil Engineering, Dr. Brandon Ross, his graduate student, Diana Chen, and their Creative Inquiry, Bio-inspired Adaptable Structures, are studying and researching through artistic case studies.

In 2008, The National Academy of Engineering released what it calls “The Grand Challenges for Engineering,” which includes challenges such as providing access to clean water, reverse-engineering the brain, and restoring and improving urban infrastructure. They call these “The Grand Challenges” because they believe that these are some of the biggest issues that engineers face today. Ross and Chen have chosen to work towards finding solutions to the grand challenge of restoring and improving urban infrastructure by pairing civil engineering and biomimicry with art.

According to Dr. Ross, “infrastructure includes all of the physical structures that make modern life possible. Every time you get a drink of water, you are relying on infrastructure to clean the water and to deliver it to you … Infrastructure is all around us, and, yet, we don’t often realize how critical it is to almost every aspect of modern life.” In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers issued a report card grading various categories of U.S. infrastructure. The average grade was a D+. The report card graded America’s infrastructure so harshly because it is aging and failing, and so is the funding that supports infrastructure, particularly in urban areas which support millions of people. This grand challenge is calling for sustainable solutions, paying specific attention to environmental and energy-use considerations (though cities take up just a small percentage of the Earth’s surface, they disproportionately exhaust resources and generate pollution). The Creative Inquiry students are working towards answers and solutions to this grand challenge.

Ross and Chen began this Creative Inquiry in an attempt to guide and lead students in the exploration of sustainable construction techniques through art, bridge the gaps between different academic disciplines, and come up with potential solutions to the grand challenge. Ross, Chen, and their team have also joined forces with Dr. Lisa Benson, associate professor in Engineering and Science Education, to spearhead an event called “Science as Art.” It’s an outreach festival targeted towards non-scientists and secondary school students as a means of celebrating and bringing awareness to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields through artwork. Visual representations of scientific discoveries and concepts provide a valuable connection between scientists, artists, and the general public. Ross explains, “We’re trying to couple these ideas of brute engineering and creativity.” Because art is a universal language that we use to communicate with others, we can all relate to it in one form or another, and we’re all capable of creating it.

Students in this Creative Inquiry began by learning about biomimicry—a design concept that involved studying nature’s models and using these designs and processes to solve human problems. After learning about biomimicry and other sustainable construction techniques, the students studied and chose a biological organism that portrayed a structural form found in nature. The students then took this example of structural form and applied it to civil engineering through art by designing and building a piece of bio-inspired (bio-mimicked) artwork.

The biomimetic aspect the team chose to use was the honeycomb. The students constructed a structure that is shaped like an individual cell in a honeycomb. This structural decision represents the maximization of internal space and the minimization of resources used. When it comes to building a prototype such as the honeycomb, the students take into consideration its capability of having multiple shapes and functions. As Ross, Chen, and their students continue to make groundbreaking prototypes, they keep in mind that most things, much like their prototypes, mimic something that came before them.