Exploring a Biomimicry Approach to Enhance Ecological Sustainability in Architecture

Abstract

Increased environmental consciousness in recent years, stimulated by concerns about human induced climate change, has motivated a desire to reduce the impact of the built environment through eco efficient design imperatives. This evolution has provided eco practitioners with multifaceted challenges in making their practices more ecologically sustainable through optimal approaches to design. One such design approach to ecological sustainability is to emulate or take creative inspiration from natural systems, often referred to as biomimicry. This study examines how eco practitioners perceive biomimicry as a design approach in architectural eco design practice. An exploratory approach, taking a post-positivist epistemological framework informed a mixed method, correlational, project-based research design. The theoretical contribution was a model and framework for biomimicry thinking which suggested ways of addressing problems of conceptualisation and understanding the complexities of ecological integration that had been identified as barriers to the practice of ecologically sustainable design. The empirical contribution was a recommendation for a Biomimicry Approach, which proposed a simultaneous use of indirectly mimicking and directly mimicking to architectural eco design projects. Multivariate statistical analysis recognised biomimicry principles, design propositions and physical attributes as the most significant predictors that can enhance ecological sustainability in architecture. The study’s outcome in relation to biomimicry advanced understanding of ways to reduce waste by efficient spatial design was seen as a contribution architects can make to the concept of a reduction scenario for the ecological age. This thesis adds important knowledge to underpin future research and recommends biomimicry design indicators, biomimicry design matrix and possibilities for the use of vernacular architectural strategies for the development of architectural eco design practice.