SYMP 14-2
Biomimicry and architectural design of urban water systems
Natural systems on Earth are interconnected and natural cycles feed back on each other in a balanced way. But the increased pace and scale of human activities such as those leading to pollution, contamination and scarcity, has tremendous consequences for the balance of water systems that allow all species, including our own, to thrive. We propose the use of biomimetic design, the integration of nature’s solutions with innovative problem solving for man-made environments, as one solution to address the design of urban water systems.
Biomimetic design can help us change our perception and actions by looking to nature as a source of functional and aesthetic solutions rather than as a source of obstacles to overcome. Rather than creating a distinction between the built and un-built worlds, our approach interrelates the two. Rather than inserting architecture into nature, our goal is to shift this perception and integrate built forms into the natural world.
Results/Conclusions
We present three case studies of urban water systems at different landscape scales: the restoration of a scarred landscape near a salt lake in California, a water filtration system in the Boston bay using barges and aquatic organisms, and a building envelope - inspired by a slug - that collects rain water for a green house. In each of these projects, we consider the climatic and ecological context in which the inspiring organism or system evolved, and we draw upon those adaptations that have allowed them to become successful in those contexts. The resulting projects perform and respond: they take into consideration the dynamic local environmental conditions, enhancing and supporting them rather than exploiting them. The resulting architectural designs illustrate an integrative methodology that allows architecture to follow nature intelligently.
The methodology was developed considering a fundamental lesson learned from nature - the interrelatedness of all elements in a system. That is why we emphasize an interdisciplinary approach between biologists and architects. A central goal for our methodology is successful communication between disciplines. A powerful tool is drawings, which are used as a common visual language to help identify, evaluate and define the knowledge relevant to the objectives. while working well at the research level, the next step of investigation seeks the real ground of experimentation where full-scale structures can be tested over time in their environments. This is where the field is moving, and we look forward to contributing to it.