Biotonomy

One of the biggest design mistakes in modern buildings!

And it happens every day, without anyone questioning it.

Every time it rains, thousands of liters fall on our buildings.
Instead of being used, almost all of it is flushed straight into the sewage.

When millions of roofs do this at the same time, streets overflow and cities flood.

But nature works differently.
Forests and soil hold the rain, clean it, and let it sink slowly back into the ground.

Green roofs, vertical gardens, and wetlands bring that same system into our cities.

They capture the rain, store it, and release it slowly — back into the groundwater, not into the sewage.

The truth is:
Floods are not just caused by heavy rain.
They’re caused by bad design.

Want to learn how Green Buildings can fix this? Comment “Academy” below and we’ll share the link.

Biotonomy – Nature Based Architecture

We turned a grey hotel into a green one — in just 6 weeks.

We were tired of hearing people talk about sustainability.

So in our city, , we took action.

We had a simple but bold idea:
Use the hotel's own wastewater to grow a green building.

Everyone told us it was too risky.
Too complicated.
Some even laughed at us.

But we turned that challenge into our motivation.

And not only did it work — it changed everything.

◾It became a meeting point in the city
◾ It increased the commerce in the neighborhood
◾ It cooled the street
◾ It reduced the energy consumption
◾ It cleaned the air
◾ It brought nature, wildlife, and smiles back

Now it inspires people from all over the world.
Not just because it’s beautiful —
But because it brings something rare: hope.

Hope that cities can change.
That nature can return.
That we don’t have to wait for others to fix what’s broken.

You don’t need millions.
You don’t need a big team.
You just need a a strong vision — and the tools to execute it.

Want to learn how to build Green Buildings like this?
Comment “Academy” and we’ll send you the link to get started.

Biotonomy - Nature Based Architecture

We've been cooling buildings the wrong way for over a century.

The answer has always been using nature.

Here's the thing most people don't know.

Plants don't cool the air by giving shade - something much more advanced is happening.

A leaf the size of your hand has around 2 million tiny openings.
All day long, water leaves through those openings as v***r.

Turning water into v***r eats heat. A lot of it.
That heat has to come from somewhere.
It comes from the sun hitting the leaf, and from the warm air around it.

Here's how it works, step by step:

When the sun hits a concrete wall. The energy turns into heat.
The wall gets hot, the air next to it gets hot, and you feel it as you walk past.

The same sun hits a green wall. The energy turns water inside the leaves into v***r instead.
The heat stays locked in that v***r and is carried away with the air.
The wall stays close to air temperature. Nothing gets hot.
That's it.

A concrete wall in full sun can be 10 to 20°C hotter than the air around it.

A green wall stays close to the air temperature.
A 100 m² green wall moves several hundred liters of water into the air every day.

We've been told we need machines to cool buildings.
We don't. We just need to design buildings that do not trap the heat.

At Biotonomy , this is how we have been designing our buildings for the past 15 years.

Want to learn how green buildings work? See the link in the first comment below.

Biotonomy - Nature Based Architecture.

5 years ago they kicked us out of the municipal building department.

Because we asked to

Reuse wastewater to irrigate a green building.

A technician said it was unrealistic and asked us not to come back.

So we kept going back.

The thing is, we have been hearing no for 15 years.
The only way we ever got a yes was by keep going back.

We built that project in a small hotel and it won Spain's top national award in the hotel sector.

Then we were asked to do the same for one of the biggest hotel groups in Europe - Accor.

We are installing it right now in Madrid, Spain.

We did not get this project by following the rules.

We got it because we did not take no for an answer.

Don't let anyone stop you from doing what is needed - not even your own city.

Comment "ACADEMY" if you want to learn how to build these systems.

Biotonomy — This is Nature Based Architecture.

Throwing shower water away is one of the biggest design mistakes in buildings.

And flushing toilets with clean drinking water makes no sense.

Shower water is barely dirty.
A bit of soap, a bit of hair.
And still, it goes down the same drain as everything else.

A family of four sends close to 100,000 liters of shower and washing water down the drain every year.
Europe has over 200 million households. If every home did the same, that's around 20 trillion liters a year, thrown away.

In the houses we build, we don't throw it away.
We reuse shower water to flush toilets and water the garden.

That cuts the building's water use by about 30%.

Here is how it works in a house we built in Austria:

The shower water runs into a long planter inside the glass corridor.
Gravel, roots, and bacteria clean it.
Then it is sent back to flush the toilets or to irrigate the garden outside.

The six steps to build it are in the carousel below.
Save it for your next project!

Comment "ACADEMY" if you want to learn how to design systems like this.

Photos: Marco Mathis
Project: designed, engineered and built by Biotonomy

Biotonomy — Nature Based Architecture

Every building we built in 15 years cleans its own water.

Without chemicals or energy. Just a bed of gravel with plants on top.

Most architects and engineers don't believe it until they see it.

So let me show you what happens inside.

Gravel does two jobs.

It creates millions of gaps. The dirt in the water gets trapped in those gaps.

And around each stone, a thin layer of slime grows. That slime is billions of bacteria.

When the water enters the gravel, it is forced through the gaps.

The bacteria eat every bit of dirt that gets trapped.

To eat, bacteria need to breathe. That is where the plants come in.

The roots of the plants reach down into the gravel and leak air into it.

The more air the bacteria get, the faster they eat.

When the dirt is gone, the water comes out clean.

So what you are looking at is a giant living filter. Billions of bacteria, and the water passes through them.

As long as they get air and dirt to eat, they keep working. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for decades.

Every building could clean its own water this way and reuse it.

Instead, we send it away. United Nations estimates that worldwide only 20% of it ever gets cleaned. The rest ends up in nature.

Every architect decides where the water goes. Most don't know they are deciding.

We teach how to design this in the Biotonomy Academy. Wnat to learn how? Comment "Academy" below

Biotonomy - Nature Based Architecture