The contributors to the new desert anthology, from Alison Deming and Thomas Antonio to Ellen McMahon and Paul Mirocha, make one point clear; you needed go much farther than any desert habitat to teach architects, engineers, or builders to basics of design, how form and function go hand and hand.
The curved trough of an agave leaf was harvesting rainwater for millennia in the hope that individuals as bright as Brad Lancaster and Tony Burgess would see their genius and apply the same designs to human needs.
The pineapple – like core shape of an agave is far more stable and structurally cohesive than most balls that humans craft.
Go out in the desert and see that it is a designer’s showcase, the biomimicry laboratory for the future for designing, shelters and bridges for the poor, who will be living in hotter and drier conditions more and more.
