STRATEGIES OF BIO MIMICRY AS A TOOL FOR SUSTAINABILITY (APPLICATIONS IN SIMULATION FOR DESIGN COLLEGES' STUDENTS)

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Architectural Engineering Dept., Faculty of Engineering, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

Strategies of bio mimicry are considered one of the most modern and vital trends, which
affecting the architectural thinking and have an effective role in increasing the building
efficiency towards its surrounding environment. Nature has been and remained the source of
systems and processes. Due to its rules and principles, it could preserve the ecosystem
through which design solutions could be drawn. Such solutions are more capable than
humans, and the design thinking which combines biology and architecture and creating
integration between building and nature is called science of bio mimicry. Such phenomenon
has assisted the architectural applications on generating sustainable shapes that are more
balanced to the surrounding environment, however some of these applications are superficial
and depended on simulation of living shapes with ignoring the biological relationship between
such shapes with their environment. Consequently, the research dilemma is represented in not
utilizing, implicitly and in depth, from natural science in preparing architectural designs
whether such science is physical or biology of the ecosystems for living organism and their
principles that ensuring its internal cohesion, which in turn adapting with the environmental
changes surrounding. Therefore, the study highlights the significance of studying the
strategies and principles of bio mimicry, and utilized them and thus it is possible to create
innovative design solutions to achieve more sustainable ecological balance. By studying the
simulation techniques and highlight at certain applications utilized by at design works, the
research has emphasized the importance of the integration of biology with nature, and this
attitude of understanding such ecological systems could lead to developing a methodology for
a sustainable ecological design, of which the environmental biology shall become a vital
element integrated with ecological design systems.

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