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THE next wave of modern architecture could have more in common with bones and
skeletons than bricks and mortar. A pair of architects in Britain say that giant
arches, bridges and walls made of artificial bone could be easier to design and
build than conventional structures. They have already designed a number of
structures, including a bridge, to show how their idea would work.

Chris Williams and Emma Nsugbe, architects at the University of Bath, say
that nature has come up with bones and skeletons as a solution to many of the
engineering problems that architects face, such as how to support loads and
manage stresses. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no doubt the skeleton is more efficient than any
man-made structure is going to be,鈥� says Williams.

But bones have irregular shapes, and this makes it hard to incorporate them
into buildings. So Williams and Nsugbe developed a mathematical model which
shows how to create bone-like structures in whatever shape is required. Williams
found that a simple equation can be used to describe the entire shape and form
of a complex structure such as his bridge.

Producing an entire bridge from a single equation has several advantages.
Conventional bridges often have a large number of components with different
mechanical properties. Understanding how these will behave when fitted together
can be difficult. The designers of London鈥檚 Millennium Bridge found this out to
their cost earlier this year, as the bridge began to wobble alarmingly when
people walked across it. The behaviour of a bridge that can be described by a
single equation should be much easier to calculate.

The new approach has other advantages, too. 鈥淚f you have just one
mathematical function for the entire structure, it鈥檚 completely smooth,鈥� says
Julian Vincent at the Centre for Biomimetics at the University of Reading. 鈥淚f
it鈥檚 smooth, you won鈥檛 get any of the stress concentrations you get with sharp
angles.鈥� Stress concentrations can lead to weak points unless they are specially
reinforced.

There is also a beauty to Williams鈥檚 bone-like structures that conventional
buildings lack. 鈥淲hat you have is an object that defines itself. Even the
smallest part of the structure would contain all the information you need to
create the whole thing,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a mathematical purity about it.鈥�

But Vincent warns that more work will be needed before Williams and Nsugbe鈥檚
designs can actually be built. The structures and shapes of bones are designed
to withstand the very specific types of loads they experience in the body.
Because of this, such shapes and structures may not be the best designs for
bridges, he says. Williams agrees: 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 follow these things blindly,鈥� he
says. 鈥淵ou have to understand why structures in nature are as they are.鈥�