As the need for environmentally friendly buildings as well as cost friendly design rises with global temperatures, one group of industry professionals is using disruptive thinking to accommodate. Verdical Group, a full service green building consulting firm based out of Los Angeles, California, hosted the inaugural Biomimicry Conference—titled “Road to Resiliency”—on March 11, 2016 at Southern California Edison Energy Education Center.
The conference drew more than 250 industry professionals ranging from architects and engineers to manufacturers and consultants to discuss a groundbreaking approach to building—biomimicry, which seeks sustainable solutions to our layered human challenges by gaining inspiration from nature’s process, patterns, and strategies. Nature has had 3.8 billion years to research and develop sustainable, efficient, high performance, green-material-based, net zero waste systems. Why not use the best time-tested model around to guide humans in creating a resilient future?
The purpose of the conference was to gather together and inform thought leaders and decision makers through case studies of biomimetic design and application. Verdical Group served as the perfect host for this conference with its business model: “Do Good and Do Well,” experience consulting on 75+ LEED projects, and its proven track record of saving clients money while benefitting the environment. Drew Shula, founder and principal at Verdical Group, opened the conference by encouraging his urbanite attendees to spend more time outside and by showing photos from his recent hike in the San Gabriel Mountains to reference how nature solves design problems.
The remainder of the half-day conference consisted of five TED-style presentations from leading biomimicry experts and AEC firms. Amanda Sturgeon, CEO of International Living Future Institute, gave the opening keynote presentation and discussed the intersection of biophilia, the innate connection between humans and nature, and biomimicry, with a focus on how to create regenerative buildings and communities. The rest of the speakers covered topics such as biomimicry application, biophilia and resiliency in the built environment, biomimetic building facades, biomimicry ROI with regards to the manufacturer’s perspective, and scale/best practices for architects. The conference concluded with a Q&A with all conference speakers followed by a networking reception. The diverse group of speakers present at this conference insured not only representation of the many different voices in this conversation, but also highlighted the cross-industry opportunities biomimicry has in building environmentally conscious structures.
Verdical Group will be hosting another green building conference on August 19, 2016. This will be the third annual Net Zero Conference, Energy + Water + Waste. According to Verdical Group, this Net Zero Conference is “one of the largest net zero events in the country, and the premier SoCal conference dedicated to net zero design. The event has captured the building industry’s momentum toward a net zero future, and doubled in size in its first two years. Verdical Group, the conference organizer, is projecting the conference to double in size again to 600 attendees in 2016.” The half-day event will include five TED-style net zero case study presentations from nationally leading AEC firms, an exhibitor table expo, and high quality networking opportunities. Register for this event here.
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