Of the many rising stars in the field of green architecture, Richard Cook is arguably the brightest. He has a theoretical rigor and passion for sustainability on par with William McDonough. He has the design ingenuity of Frank Gehry. So it’s not surprising that Cook is quickly making his name known among the vanguard of 21st century architects.

The visionary father of experimental cinema, Stan Brakhage, once created a legendary film called Mothlight (watch it on the By Brakhage – Anthology DVD), composed entirely by gluing the wings of moths to film. Recent studies indicate that perhaps his extraordinary intuition has now seeped from celluloid into science, according to BBC News: “The way light is extracted from the butterfly’s system is more than an analogy – it’s all but identical in design to the LED,” explains University of Exeter researcher Pete Vukusic. Fluorescent patches on the wings of African swallowtail butterflies work in a very similar way to to the innovative designs of cutting edge high emission light emitting diodes (LEDs).