Lizards, red teams & genAI strategies

Your new Strategy Toolkit newsletter (May 20, 2024)

(1) When the whole is more than a sum of the parts…

Biologists have long marvelled at the defensive strategy of reptiles and amphibians that are able to lose an appendage (typically a part of their tail) and live to regenerate it another day. Building designers used this as an inspiration to create a new way to reinforce separate parts of new construction…

“A building inspired by how some lizards shed defined tail segments to escape predators could save lives by isolating collapsing sections when it’s damaged. Current designs redistribute local failures to the rest of a structure through greater connectivity — but this can backfire when collapsed parts pull down the rest. Researchers built a two-story building to show that partial-strength connections between load-bearing columns can stop a collapse from propagating through the entire structure. The design uses common construction methods and materials, and would even meet existing building codes.”*

* Fox, D., “Controlled failure: The building designed to limit catastrophe,” Nature (May 15, 2024); https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01384-y

* Makoond, N., Setiawan, A., Buitrago, M. et al. Arresting failure propagation in buildings through collapse isolation. Nature 629, 592–596 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07268-5