Michael Pawlyn has been described as a pioneer of 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.

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 viewings.

Michael Pawlyn jointly initiated the widely acclaimed Sahara Forest Project; the latest version of which was opened by the King of Jordan in 2017. In 2019 he was involved in launching ‘Architects Declare a Climate & Biodiversity Emergency’ which has spread internationally and now has over six thousand companies signed up to addressing the planetary crisis.

Since 2018 he has been increasingly providing advice to national governments and large companies on transformative change. His book Biomimicry in Architecture has been RIBA Publications’ best-selling title and he is currently working on a co-authored book with Sarah Ichioka, titled Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency, due to be published in September 2021.