Ornilux Mikado: Bird-Protection Glass Inspired by Spider Webs

[Dover]

Biomimicry in architecture:



The past few years have yielded a promising array of designs inspired by biomimicry, radically diverse in domain and application but unified by a common tangent of brilliant simplicity and impressive efficiency. One such award-winning example is Ornilux Mikado – bird-protection glass inspired by spider webs.

Spiders weave their nets out of special UV-reflecting silk, allowing birds – which are able to detect UV light – to recognize them as obstacles. Standard window panes, however, are made of clear glass that birds have trouble detecting and often injure themselves flying into.

The discreet lifesaver is covered in an innovative coating barely visible to humans. Backlit, it resembles intricate and subtle frost patterns, or Mikado sticks – hence the name. To birds, however, the patterns come to life as powerful UV reflections that signal an impenetrable surface.

The glass architecture is the result of close collaboration between ornithologists, designers and engineers – an epitome of how the cross-pollination of disciplines ignites ingenuity and innovation.

-- Maria Popova is the editor of Brain Pickings, a curated inventory of miscellaneous interestingness. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Magazine, Design Observer and Huffington Post, and spends a shameful amount of time on Twitter.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/24033



Ornilux:
http://www.ornilux.de/cms.asp?Sprache=en

[dgibby]

1. Thanks, Dover!

You post the neatest stuff! I'd love to have this on my windows. Can't begin to tell you how many birds have tried to commit suicide on my office window!:hi:

[Dover]

2. Thanks for the kudos. I think architectural glass is only going to grow in use

what with so many new breakthroughs in glass technology, esthetically as well as functionally. So I think it will be imperative to incorporate the bird safety features or we'll have a huge increase in bird mortality. I was really pleased to see this article. Mother Nature has much to teach us.

[Warpy]

4. This is beautiful as well as functional

and would be just as pleasing (if not more so) if the patterns were more pronounced.

I hope the price is competitive so that it's a realistic alternative since we're likely to be stuck with the glass boxes on the skyline for the foreseeable future.

[aquart]

3. Brilliant.

Heart and mind and industry working together.

[ret5hd]

5. So wouldn't regular UV blocking glass just look like a wall to the birds?

[CJvR]

6. Not...

...if it doesn't reflect UV radiation.

UV blocking glass more likely prevents high energy light from getting through the glass itself rather than reflecting it.

[Nihil]

7. Wonder if you get a benefit ...

... from drawing a few fine lines across the panes using one of those
property-marking UV pens (anti-theft)?

Anyhow, thanks for the post!
:toast: