Leaf City

This was kind a rush job, I meant to do a little more with the illustrations, but my new work schedule kind of minimizes my time for video production. Not a very good excuse I know, but the good news is that I plan on releasing more videos. My new target is one per week.

Transcript:

This is an illustrated example showing how preexisting organic infrastructure can be applied to contemporary city planning to produce a model that is not only superior in overall design, but allows for critical insight into solving future problems.

What is a city besides an elaborate and often dysfunctional circulatory system? Energy is absorbed, transformed and transported. Leaves are optimized for solar energy. Predominantly flat, wide and possessing limited reflexive mobility that allows them to maximize their exposure and absorption. An essential property here is parallelism, using many low power, low cost modules to outperform a small number of high-power, high-cost modules.

The key thing to notice is the holistic nature of the design, energy production is distributed rather than centralized. This is not just convenient but actually critical to the functionality of the entire structure. Fractals also illustrate this principle of scale. Self-sufficient modules, or themes are repeated throughout the spectrum, larger structures contain or are comprised of smaller permutations of the whole. This creates strength, durability, adaptability and allows microcosmic models to compete in a complementary rather than destructive way while maintaining overall design integrity. The true genius of this system is that it allows the holistic model to gradually improve, without requiring a complete and arbitrary re-design.

Looking at the overall structure it is disproportionately two-dimensional. While the stem and circulatory channels are mostly cylindrical for load bearing reasons, they clearly avoid entering a extensive three-dimensional footprint. Probably because of gravity and the linear nature of visible radiation. This rule of thumb also applies to man-made structures. The most interesting thing to note here is how leaves utilize semi-transparency and flexibility for layering, effectively multiplying their surface area.

Semi-chaotic patters often perform better than strictly ordered ones. i.e. nano-filaments, used for energy absorption. This makes sense given that there are no perfect circles or straight lines in nature. Likewise there are no perfect trajectories or relationships between quantum fields. However the best model is one that contains a hybrid approach, specifically a balance between highly ordered elements and chaotic aspects. Both are essential to the overall design because in an ever changing environment a static organism is a dead organism.

The process that we call evolution has already solved most of these circulatory problems, in all observable instances creating superior models, far more efficient and pragmatic than our specialized industrialized versions.

Although taking this to the next level of speculation, assuming that these organisms were left unmolested to grow and adapt over many billions of years, there is no guarantee that they would form structures capable of surviving a supernovae. Still I think that for the time being they provide a great deal of insight into infrastructure design and could be utilized for our benefit.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• city
• planning
• advanced
• infrastructure
• observation
• nature
• natural
• holistic
• organic
• circulatory
• systems
• evolution
• design
• architecture
• superior
• efficiency
• solar
• energy
• future

[fandore12]

i sometimes think about a perfect type of city, i think it would corraspond with a coan like shape, turned upside down... that is the best type of structure to build for people in the upcomming years, one that can withstand even something like katrena or worse.. i would even go far enough to say you could see a possable city-building, one with all the needs fit right into the building. that would truely be the future!

[neotoy]

The whole point of this video is to illustrate how designs based on naturally occurring models work better than those that are "made up" by people. Natural designs have been proven successful over billions of years, while most of our contrived structures are totally unsustainable and will probably not survive the next couple of centuries. We shouldn't be looking at the 'future' but rather at the past.

[TiberiusBrast]

I was reading this article you might be interested in

EMERGENCE, DROP-BACK AND REDUCTIONISM IN LIVING SYSTEMS THEORY

EMERGENCE IN LIVING SYSTEMS THEORY Kenneth D. Bailey

[letmuccini]

I WISH OR CITY WAS LIKE A LEAF! THEN OUR STRUCTURE WOULD GRETANE AND HELP OUR UNIVERSE BE MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY FREINDLY!! WE COULD PRODUCE OUR OWN FOOD AND SURVIVE THIS WAY THERE WOULD BE PEACE IN OUR WORLD MADE OUT OF LEAF!

[ushavr]

Quite an interesting idea. Please do post updates to this idea, as and when you may have.

[dangerjuices]

very good video! nature beats us

[foxfairness]

quite an interesting idea