• Cradle to not product cradle, nor building cradle, but landscape cradle.
Pyro-resistor traits Traits translated from ecological to architectural applications: • Retardant Rhytidome
• Pyriscence
• Pyrogermination
• Abscission
• Architectural DNA [i.e. codes] distributed at multiple spatiotemporal scales.
A proposal for the reconciliation of human and nonhuman systems at the wildland-urban-interface
• Environmental sensing, actuating, & analysis informing architectural transitions.
PYRORESISTORS
Pyro-pangenesis
Genus Principles:
Highly attuned to their local environment, when climatic and/or ecological regime shifts occur, pyroresistors evolve in response. As occurs in living organisms, each new pyro-resistor generation features data [DNA] mutations that help to ensure the resilience of their architectural species over time and space. Collecitvely, pyro-resistors, pyroendurers, and pyro-evaders, follow three architectural R’s:
Design thinking, practice, and policy brief • Architecture as a cyclic biochemical process of material & information exchange.
• Creative destruction as architectural and urban design brief.
© Bioratorium Limited & Melissa Sterry 2020 All Rights Reserved
• Ashes to Architectural Ashes: upon destruction nourish not pollute landscapes.
Panarchistic Architecture
• Architectural genera of 3 variants: pyro-endurers, pyro-evaders, & pyro-resistors.
• resprout [replicate] • Genus variants replicate, reproduce, or resist upon the passing of wildfire.
• redistribute [reproduce]
• Pyro-endurers exhibit resprouting, pyriscence, pyrogermination, & abscission.
• resist [remain].
• Pyro-evaders exhibit pyriscence, & pyrogermination.
Disclaimer A speculative work, which has been created to provoke new architectural and urban thinking and practices when designing for the wildland-urbaninterface, this pamphlet is for use as an educational and learning tool only.
• Pyro-resistors exhibit retardance, abscission, pyriscence, & pyrogermination.
• Evolutionary architecture, forms new species & assemblages in space and time.
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Regime: Low-severity / Mixed-severity Frequency: High / Intensity: Low
Pyroresistors Fire Regime type
Evolved to persist in WUI adjoining low and mixedseverity fire regimes, pyroresisting architectures comprise functional traits selected to resist frequent, but relatively low intensity fires.
Physiologically, die-hardy pyro-resistors are endowed with exterior parts designed to withstand fast-spreading wildfires. The form and materiality of buildings and infrastructure of this Panarchistic genus are bespoke to the site. Choice of composition and chemistry of materials, together with decisions of structure and form are informed by the surrounding vegetation type, structure, and distribution, and landscape topography, which collectively shape wind and atmospheric conditions. When collecitvely, in concert with the historical fire regime, these factors make evident that wildfire will, most likely, spread at the surface, like their ecological counterparts, pyro-resisting architectures focus their fire defences towards their base. For example, from their foundations upwards by several meters, pyro-resistors in regions prone to surface fires feature fire-resistant walls, windows, and doors, and ‘self-pruning’ of all such parts that could enable fire to scale their exteriors [i.e. features made from flammable materials, such as wooden verandas, and trellises]. Vice versa, in regions prone to canopy fires, upper building parts, such as roofs and balconies, feature robust pyro-armoury [i.e. fireresistant roof tiles and topologies].
As with their ecological equivalents, such as the Coulter pine, pyro-resistors feature exterior walls of which both the molecular composition and the surface texture dissipate heat, thus helping to protect interior parts [i.e. bark-like plating]. Several routes may facilitate the research and development of such material and architectural systems. For example, mineral-based materials could be recycled into plate-like furrowed amour that could be affixed to building exteriors. Alternatively, biotechnology
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*Pyrophytes are plants evolved to live with wildfire.
and/or biodesign may present the potential to build bark-like bricks biologically. Integration of chemical sensors and actuators could enable self-repairing processes similar to those that enable post-fire rhytidome renewal in pyrophytes*.
Like endurers and evaders, pyro-resistors store data in serotinous, and other pyriscent ‘seeds’, of which ‘germination’ is activated by wildfire’s presence. Phenologically adapted to relatively short fire-cycles, in the instance the spatiotemporal dimensions thereof align to the historical fire regime, like pyroendurers, resistors of the architectural variant commonly replicate pre-fire conditions.
.
Images: ‘Retardant Bio-Bark’ pyroresistor concept sketches
This text is extracted from ‘Panarchistic Architecture: Building Wildland-Urban Interface Resilience to Wildfire through Design Thinking, Practice and Building Codes Modelled on Ecological Systems Theory’, 2018.