Michael Pawlyn is an architect, writer, and public speaker who was appointed as a Design Council expert. He has been described as an expert in regenerative design and biomimicry. He established his firm Exploration Architecture in 2007 to focus on high performance buildings and solutions for the circular economy. The... Read more
Michael Pawlyn is an architect, writer, and public speaker who was appointed as a Design Council expert. He has been described as an expert in regenerative design and biomimicry. He established his firm Exploration Architecture in 2007 to focus on high performance buildings and solutions for the circular economy. The company has developed a ground-breaking office project, an ultra-low energy data centre, a zero waste textiles factory and progressive solutions for green cities. Michael Pawlyn jointly initiated the widely acclaimed Sahara Forest Project; the latest version of which was opened by the King of Jordan.
Prior to setting up Exploration, Michael Pawlyn worked with Grimshaw for ten years and was central to the team that designed the Eden Project. He is regularly booked as a keynote speaker on innovation and his TED talk has had over 2 million views. He has written two books – Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency (co-authored with Sarah Ichioka) and Biomimicry in Architecture – both of which have been the respective publisher’s best-selling title. In 2019 he jointly initiated ‘Architects Declare a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency’ – a global call to action which has spread to 28 countries with over 7,000 firms signed up.
He has been featured in The Financial Times, National Geographic, The Economist, Wired and The Guardian as well as in a large number of design magazines. His television and radio appearances include ‘Animal Einsteins’ on BBC television and a number of programmes on BBC Radio 4.
It is crucial that we make AI work for us in bringing about the kind of world we want – helping us design cities, buildings and products that perform better in terms of energy use, material efficiency and in protecting the living world.