Life enhancers: Biophilia & Biomimicry

At a broader perspective, Sustainable development and design mainly fall into two paradigms, one is based on technological sustainability emerging from the mechanistic worldview and other based on ecological sustainability coming from ecological worldview. Regenerative development and design emerged from the later while the eco-efficient design such as green or high-performance building from the first.

Green building design or sustainable design as defined by MacMillian dictionary states that it is a resource efficient sustainable built environment having neutral environmental impact. In the field of architecture, interest in sustainable development has centred on the concept’s initial environmental goals and has been based on the ’green’ architecture for a while. While various related fields have emerged at the same time such as ecological design, biophilic design, biomimicry including regenerative design.

BIOPHILIA

Biophilia can be defined as the inclination towards nature required in people’s health, fitness and well-being. Biophilic values, benefits, design elements and attributes stemmed from humanity’s dependence on nature.

However, very few examples exist in the context of Australia unlike in cities like Chicago, Singapore, Toronto. Lack of knowledge and awareness seem to be the barriers for its mainstream implementation of this concept.

BIOMIMICRY

Biomimicry is a design theory presented to fit the tenets of the Regenerative paradigm. Benyus, 1998 suggests that humans view nature as a teacher and a role model. As a teacher, nature offers ecological standards and as a model it inspired design. Nature is used increasingly as a mentor and as a measure in the design of urban environments, infrastructure and buildings. However, biomimicry has a focus on material utility to understand natural elements and hence there might be traces of mechanistic worldview in it.

Urban design can use the integrated attributes of biophilia and biomimicry for an enhanced built environment inspired from nature. This can not only benefit humans but also benefits the natural systems. If we comprehend the functionality of nature and reflect on it in our actions, we can achieve what we always wanted to, that is a shared life with full of positivity, well-being and ecological regeneration.