• Cradle to not product cradle, nor building cradle, but landscape cradle.
Pyro-endurer traits Traits translated from ecological to architectural applications: • Resprouting
• 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.
PYROENDURERS
Pyro-pangenesis
Genus Principles:
Highly attuned to their local environment, when climatic and/or ecological regime shifts occur, pyroendurers evolve in response. As occurs in living organisms, each new pyro-endurer generation features data [DNA] mutations that help to ensure the resilience of their architectural species over time and space. Collecitvely, pyro-endurers, pyroevaders, and pyro-resistors, 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
Pyro-endurers Fire Regime type
Evolved to persist in WUI adjoining low and mixedseverity fire regimes, pyro-enduring architectures comprise functional traits selected to endure frequent, but relatively low intensity fires.
Morphologically, like their ecological equivalents, pyro-enduring architectures feature perennating parts, such as below-ground data and storage networks, which, like Canyon live oak roots, are protected from surface and crown fires by a layer of soil and/or other insulting organic material. The depth thereof is proportionate to the soil /material type [i.e. percentage mineral vs. organic matter, thus level of flammability]. In addition to subsurface modes of data and other storage, pyro-endurers harness the potential of remote storage networks, thus, their perennating parts may extend to satellite-enabled communications and other IOT infrastructure, such as cloud networks. Coexisting with frequent wildfires, unlike Panarchitectural genera that are adapted to infrequent, but intense wildfires, pyro-endurers may simply ‘clone’ their data and other outputs from one wildfire to another.
Physiologically, when a wildfire’s intensity exceeds the historical regime precedent and compromise the integrity of subsurface networks and data stored therein [i.e. copies of documents such as landownership, marriage, birth, and insurance certificates, architectural plans and other design blueprints, together with personal paraphernalia such as photographs], as do superspecies variants of ecological endurers, as an ‘insurance policy’, architectural pyro-endurers further exhibit a trait that’s based on postfire seedling recruitment. Datastorage and network technologies fast evolving, as biocomputing advances, pyro-endurers will advance away from digital and towards biotechnologies. Hence, morphologically and physiologically, materially and informatically, pyro-enduring architectures will become increasingly ‘life-like’.
© Bioratorium Limited & Melissa Sterry 2020 All Rights Reserved
Endowed with environmental sensing, actuating,
and analysis technologies, pyro-enduring architectures perform both pyriscence and pyrogermination upon detection of heat and/or chemical signals that evidence the passing of a wildfire. Thus, fire triggers ‘seeding’, thereon ‘germination’ of data. As do fire-adapted plant species, such as several members of the genus Pinus, architectural pyro-endurers use serotiny to distribute their data-encoded ‘seeds’, wherein resins are formulated to melt at specific temperatures, thus creating a release mechanism that propels the items into their surroundings. In concert with pyrogerminating processes, such for example as heat cracking of ‘seedcasings’ and/or responses which are triggered by the breakdown of organic compounds in the soil, pyro-enduring architectures exhibit phoenixlike recovery from wildfire. Research and development thereof involves transdisciplinary programmes populated by fire ecologists, biochemists, engineers, architects, and data scientists of whom the training spans both established and emerging research and design practice.
Foremost suited to open canopy terrains in which their structures stand sufficiently distant from both biomass and human constructions to limit the probability of wildfire spreading above surface-level, pyro-enduring architectures are free of features that enable fire to climb their exterior parts. This trait may involve a form of architectural abscission which, as a phenological behaviour, is cyclic, such as annual shedding which occurrs prior to the commencement of the fire season.
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.