7.1.4 Smoke Signals: Pyrophilic Sensing, Signalling and Symbiogenesis

“It is no exaggeration that our entire civilisation is built on seeds” Kesseler & Stuppy, 2014.

Reverting to the Panarchistic design, thinking, and policy brief, ways in which the above referenced sensing, actuating, analysis, data storage, networking, and material developments may enable architecture as cyclic biochemical process of material & information exchange, which, built to burn, recurrently rises from its ashes, but, upon doing so, evolves with each phoenix-like incarnation, include:

Resprouting

Transitioning towards biological data storage of architectural ‘DNA’, interim technologies, such as those cited above, could store all such data as is required to ‘clone’ architectural and urban assemblages [i.e. specifications and blueprints]. Whereas replication of hazard-vulnerable architectures has grave social and environmental consequences, whereupon, like endurer species [i.e. Populus tremuloides], material, structural, morphological and other traits enable persistence in fire-prone regions, the inverse applies.

Pyriscence

Environmental sensing, actuating, analysis, and networking technologies, biological and otherwise, now facilitating real-time local, regional, and global monitoring of both cyclic and sporadic planetary processes, and the body of architectural experiments in environmentally-adaptive material morphologies fast growing, the foundations for wildfire as regenerative urban catalyst are laid. Ways in which the field may advance include interrogation of the potentialities for heat-triggered structural transitions, such as those that occur when the resins in the cones of fire- adapted Pinus species [i.e. Pinus contorta] melt. Ways in which mimicry of said process may activate architectural ‘reproduction’ include the release of fabrication agents [i.e. self-organising biological materials]; of both locally and remotely stored data as may be used for purposes including construction, production of furniture and other household goods, and insurance claims; of emergency supplies [i.e. food, water, and medicine]; and of notifications to family, friends, peers, and colleagues of the loss of property, thus need of assistance [i.e. accommodation, emotional support, etc.] Upon reproduction of homes and their contents, as/where applicable, this process allows for evolution [i.e. specification upgrades].

Pyrogermination

As with pyriscence, the process of pyrogermination could be enabled through transference of existing and emerging sensing, actuating, analysis, and networking technologies, biological and otherwise. However, whereas, pyriscence is a heat- activated hybrid biochemical-mechanical process [i.e. changes in the former trigger response in the latter], pyrogermination relies wholly on receipt of chemical signatures, thus data, and in some instances, technologies as facilitate the acquisition and analysis thereof, would be different to that of pyriscence. As in fire-adapted species [i.e. Pinus attenuata], pyriscence and pyrogermination would be symbiotic, wherein their means of enabling architectural and urban reproduction would be not mutually exclusive.

Abscission

Architectural abscission, wherein external features that could carry fire from floor to roof [i.e. biotic assemblages, such as flora-clad trellises], which shed prior to the arrival of wildfire, could be facilitated through myriad mechanical processes. For example, as with pyriscence, material state-change, such as they exhibited by Menges et al’s HydroSkin, could release building components. Alternatively, sensor-activated automation could achieve the same ends. But, whatsoever methods were applied, architecturally the approach would be akin to buildings that shed their flammable skins, the timing and the extent thereof relative to the fire-regime and its behaviours. As in fire-adapted species [i.e. Pinus ponderosa], abscission timing and extent would be correlated to fire frequencies and intensities, thus genera specific.

Retardance

Chemically, structurally, and morphologically, both biofabricated and biomimetic materials may be designed and/or cultivated to retard fire. In some instances [i.e. mycelium and cork] biological materials have innate fire-retardance. Either way, as evidenced in several of the experiments cited earlier, like their wild counterparts, these materials exhibit the properties of self-organisation, including cyclical and/or event-activated renewal and repair. As relates to biomimetic materials, interest in fire- retardance growing, it is, most likely, but a matter of time before material scientists innovate roof tiles and other exterior building products which mimic the fire-retardant morphology of resistor species [i.e. Pinus coulteri].

Praetera

All three Panarchistic variants need integrate Shelter in Place [i.e. belowground bunkers], which common in hazard zones including tornado belts, can provide safe harbour for residents that find themselves caught in a firestorm. Ecologically, burrowing by means of protection from wildfire is common in numerous species including insects, small mammals, and reptiles.

>Continue to Chapter 7.1.5 here.

The thesis is also available in PDF format, downloadable in several parts on Academia and Researchgate.

Note that figures have been removed from the digital version hosted on this site, but are included in the PDFs available at the links above.

Citation: Sterry, M. L., (2018) Panarchistic Architecture: Building Wildland-Urban Interface Resilience to Wildfire through Design Thinking, Practice and Building Codes Modelled on Ecological Systems Theory. PhD Thesis, Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research [AVATAR] group, University of Greenwich, London.