How can we design for sustainability and hygiene in an urban environment in the future?

During the 2021 Hyundai RISD research collaborative, our student researcher team led by Katia Zolotovsky has turned to nature for inspiration to find new ways to keep human environments clean and healthy. We have studied insects and their ways to maintain surface hygiene, which informed us about the self-cleaning future of urban environments. This project produced a parametric design system established based on observations on micro and macro scales of insect wings. We develop a strategy that can be applied to 3d-printed macrostructures and achieve a similar water-repelling effect.

Taking inspiration from such natural products, we develop a strategy that can be applied to 3d-printed macrostructures and achieve a similar water-repelling effect. Following the prototyping, another feature has been revealed in the process, that is, the ability to direct fluid flow by arranging panel units in various angles. This feature could be related to the scale arrangement on insect wings and has the potential to be applied to architectural surfaces for optimized drainage.

For the structure being a functional morphology-based design, this bio-inspired surface could be applied to a wide range of materials, including a type of chitin-based biomaterial, which is originally hydrophilic. This experiment has the potential to provide an alternative to hydrophobic fossil fuel-based plastic with 3d-printed structured surface morphologies of biomaterials to achieve similar performance and even self-cleaning properties.

People involved: Avantika Velho, Kate Ross, Hongshun Chen, Ling Li, Katia Zolotovsky.