By 2050, 68% of the world’s population will likely live in cities. Human settlements depend on resources, benefits, and services from ecosystems, but they also tend to deplete ecosystem health. To address this situation, a new urban design and planning approach is emerging. Based on regenerative design, ecosystem-level biomimicry, and ecosystem services theories, it proposes designing projects that reconnect urban space to natural ecosystems and regenerate whole socio-ecosystems, contributing to ecosystem health and ecosystem services production. In this paper, we review ecosystems as models for urban design and review recent research on ecosystem services production. We also examine two illustrative case studies using this approach: Lavasa Hill in India and Lloyd Crossing in the U.S.A. With increasing conceptualisation and application, we argue that the approach contributes positive impacts to socio-ecosystems and enables scale jumping of regenerative practices at the urban scale. However, ecosystem-level biomimicry practices in urban design to create regenerative impact still lack crucial integrated knowledge on ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services productions, making it less effective than potentially it could be. We identify crucial gaps in knowledge where further research is needed and pose further relevant research questions to make ecosystem-level biomimicry approaches aiming for regenerative impact more effective.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03346554/document

Urban Ecosystem-Level Biomimicry and Regenerative Design: Linking Ecosystem Functioning and Urban Built Environments

Biomimicry is an interdisciplinary approach to study and transfer principles or mechanisms from nature to solve design challenges, frequently differentiated from other design disciplines by its particular focus on and promise of sustainability. However, in the biomimicry and biologically inspired design literature, there are varying interpretations of how and whether biomimetic designs lead to sustainable outcomes and how sustainability, nature, and mimesis are conceptualised and engaged in practice. This paper takes a particular focus on the built environment and presents a theoretical overview of biomimicry literature spanning across specific fields, namely architecture, philosophy, sustainability and design. We develop upon conceptual considerations in an effort to contribute to the growing calls in the literature for more reflective discussions about the nuanced relationship between biomimicry and sustainability. We further develop a ‘Biomimicry for Sustainability’ framework that synthesises recent reflective deliberations, as a possible direction for further theorisation of biomimicry, aiming to elaborate on the role of biomimicry as a sustainable design methodology and its potential to cultivate more sustainable human–nature relations. The framework is used as a tool for retrospective analysis, based on literature of completed designs, and as a catalyst for biomimetic design thinking. The objective of this paper is to serve as a point of departure for more active and deeper discussions regarding future biomimetic practice in the context of sustainability and transformational change, particularly within the built environment.

https://www.mdpi.com/2313-7673/7/2/37/pdf?version=1649398033

Biomimicry as a Sustainable Design Methodology—Introducing the ‘Biomimicry for Sustainability’ Framework

PurposeThis paper's main objective is to focus on the water-harvesting ability of plants and try to implement a solution-based method to outline a plant-inspired design framework.Design/methodology/approachThe current paper aims to provide a step-by-step approach to the biological-inspired design by looking deeply at plants' mechanisms and features to harvest water and conduct a method to learn them in an organized way.FindingsIn addition to the proposed framework, the fundamental water-harvesting principles of plants including increasing condensation, reducing transpiration and facilitating transportation have been extracted by investigating several adaptable plants. The relevant factors related to each of these three principles are introduced and can potentially ease the process of bio-inspiration as it contributes to the findability and understandability of a particular biologic strategy. As a result, this framework can be used to the formation of novel designs in different disciplines. In this process, the development of an architectural design concept is presented as an example.Originality/valueThe current global issue about the shortage of water leads researchers to learn adaptability from nature and increase the demands of using bio-inspired strategies. The novelty of this study is to introduce a water-harvesting design path, which has been presented using a four-step-plant-to-design process. Learning from plants' water-harvesting strategies will contribute to efficiency in different disciplines. The findings of this study have important implications for developing bio-inspired water-harvesting materials and systems. Moreover, the findings add substantially to the understanding of water-harvesting architecture and play an important role in bridging the gap between theory and practice.

Learning from plants: a new framework to approach water-harvesting design concepts

Biomimicry is a design framework with growing interests in sustainable architectural and urban design practice. Nevertheless, there is a significant lack of studies and knowledge regarding its practical application. In 2020, a French workgroup called Biomim’City Lab published a document identifying and describing 16 urban projects designed by French teams integrating biomimicry at various levels. Our research is an opportunistic study analyzing this data, aiming to identify trends and challenges in the French market. We analyzed the projects using a mixed-method approach, through quantitative typological analysis and qualitative narrative analysis. This sample of French projects indicates a trend of increasing interest in biomimicry on built space projects in France. Biomimicry was primarily applied at the facade/roof/soil systems, mostly using macroscopic models as ecosystems, plants, and animals. Designers declared to aim diverse objectives with the biomimetic approach; still, thermal comfort is the most recurrent in the sample. We also identified that challenges remain to foster the field application, as the lack of awareness of the urban fabric stakeholders on the topic and the gaps between research and design practice.

https://www.mdpi.com/2313-7673/6/2/27/pdf

Biomimicry in French Urban Projects: Trends and Perspectives from the Practice.

Incorporating and drawing analogies from natural systems has always been an important consideration for designers, however owing to the complexity involved in the natural systems, mimicking natural systems and developing systems with conventional technologies is difficult. With the advent of additive manufacturing and its intrinsic nature, the technology of additive manufacturing can be employed for developing 3D-printed parts. The current paper is structured in a manner to focus on how biomimetics can be better augmented with the design of various engineering systems. A section will highlight the various types of natural systems which can help improve the design process. A special discussion on the various application areas of biomimetics such as architecture, biomedical, aerospace has also been included. A systematic literature review of the work carried out in the area of 3D printing and biomimetics is also presented in this chapter. Few applications namely biomimetic sniffing, biomimetic shark skin, and biomimetic lotus root are profoundly discussed.The paper ends with the challenges associated with the current technologies, economic aspects, and future recommendations. 

Biomimetics and 3D printing - Opportunities for design applications

Application of biomimetics has expanded progressively to other fields in recent years, including urban and architectural design, scaling up from materials to a larger scale. Besides its contribution to design and functionality through a long evolutionary process, the philosophy of biomimetics contributes to a sustainable society at the conceptual level. The aim of this review is to shed light on trends in the application of biomimetics to architectural and urban design, in order to identify potential issues and successes resulting from implementation. In the application of biomimetics to architectural design, parts of individual “organisms”, including their form and surface structure, are frequently mimicked, whereas in urban design, on a larger scale, biomimetics is applied to mimic whole ecosystems. The overall trends of the reviewed research indicate future research necessity in the field of on biomimetic application in architectural and urban design, including Biophilia and Material. As for the scale of the applications, the urban-scale research is limited and it is a promising research which can facilitate the social implementation of biomimetics. As for facilitating methods of applications, it is instrumental to utilize different types of knowledge, such as traditional knowledge, and providing scientific clarification of functions and systems based on reviews. Thus, interdisciplinary research is required additionally to reach such goals.

Eduardo Blanco

Papers

Application of Biomimetics to Architectural and Urban Design: A Review across Scales