POSTPONED: The optimisation of nature in building

• Venue: Museum of Bath Architecture
• Date: Tuesday 3 September. Doors at 5.30pm for 6pm start
• Book: https://bath-preservation-trust.merlintickets.co.uk/product/EVE-00200 

The optimisation of nature in building, with Camille Chevrier and Stephen Melville, Format Engineers

Offering a technical perspective on biophilic design. This talk will discuss how form and materiality can be exploited to go beyond the conventional approach to design collaboration.

Nature gives us clues on how structures can be morphed and reconfigured, transcending the received norms of building and promoting ideas for more naturally derived materials.

By adopting these techniques, we can facilitate the design of very low embodied energy structures and ones which are more tactile and relatable to the public. The talk will focus on successful examples of innovative design both locally and across the world as well as pointers to the future of biophilic design in the built environment.

Format are Engineering Designers with backgrounds in structural engineering, coding, mathematics and architecture. They apply intellectual rigour and imagination to structural design in architecture and beyond that into the fields of art, industrial design and science. They use digital technology as a creative and productive tool and carry out original research into the application of computational design techniques thus making our designs appropriate, lean, unique and beautiful.

Camille Chevrier is a senior structural engineer and a RIBA II Architect. Camille has a special interest in projects where architecture and engineering have a strong dialogue.  In a world where resources and waste are at the centre of the concerns, she would like to minimise and optimise the impact of construction on the planet by using the right materials and the right amount depending on each project and its location. She is a visiting tutor at Reading School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes School of Architecture, Bath University and the school of Les Ponts et Chaussées in Paris for the Master Design by Data.

Stephen Melville is a Structural Engineer who strongly believes in the power of early engagement and creative input. He is convinced that geometry modelling, digital optimisation, fabrication, research and education should be indivisible part of the design process and consequently Structural Engineers can, and should be, a bridge between the worlds of science, art, architecture and design.  He was an Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes School of Architecture, a collaborator on the Architecture Association Active Matter course and regularly critiques/tutors at TU Delft and Westminster. He has published several papers about digital design in Engineering and Architecture as well as writing a weekly column in Building Design magazine.