Contacting Experts

So have been looking for experts in the area of biominerlisation for someone to be able to back some of the ideas we have about buildings and passage ways eventually being able to be grown from plants. Have been googling and found this guy specialising in biominerlisation in Chile -

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjithkrishnapai

The part that stood out in his summary was - "My research efforts will provide an interdisciplinary research environment and goal is to use biological principles as guidance in developing new, bio-inspired synthetic routes and nanofabrication strategies that would lead to advanced materials and devices". As we are interested in how we can use plant materials in advanced ways to create building structures.

http://www.cimat.cl/cvs/cvrpai.xml - his online resume where his email is located.

So I have initially emailed him the following from my Vic email address...

Dear Ranjith Krishna Pai,

We are a group of Victoria University students currently in our final year doing a design research project for the New Zealand Government’s Wellington City Council. We are creating a design vision for Wellington City 2040, as a part of our course Design Led Futures. They are looking to us for our design vision of the future, but we need some research to back up our proposal. We have been advised to contact professionals in the relevant areas for their knowledge to validate some of our ideas.

We decided to contact you because we understand that you have done extensive research in the area of biominerlisation.

We are trying to bring more fun into the central business district by creating inflatable architecture between high rise buildings.Today you can use PVC but we are looking for something to substitute this which is more environmentally friendly and biodegradable. We hope to grow these buildings and passage ways in the future rather than using conventional building methods and materials.

Would you have the time to answer a few questions relating to biominerlisation? We would be very grateful to have your insight.

Kind Regards,

Xanthe Flesch

Xanthe Flesch
Fourth Year Digital Media Design
Faculty of Architecture & Design
139 Vivian Street, Wellington,
New Zealand

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Hopefully if he replies I can go on to ask the following questions that Jason helped me form as the kind of things we would like to hear from him about -

- Where do you see the future of your materials research in thirty years time?

- Do you believe we will be able to grow materials into forms like buildings rather than using conventional materials and construction techniques in the future?

- What is currently the most advanced material of growing organic and inorganic materials?

The questions were originally going to be in the first email but Cornelia made a good point when she proof read it for me that you don't want to hound them with questions in the first email, but rather establish who you are, what you are doing and whether they would be interested in answering a few things for you.

Still planning on contacting some more people in this area though incase some don't reply...