Urban planners can incorporate sustainability into their agendas using Biomimicry, a design methodology that’s gaining popularity in today’s society. Biomimicry, meaning “to imitate life”, mimics the designs and processes of the natural world to solve human problems. Biomimicry can be applied to production, consumption, disposal; whether in areas like energy, recycling, engineering or transportation, living organisms have managed to perform these functions without depleting natural resources or polluting the planet. Biomimicry can also be used to help design buildings by incorporates systems and elements that can be found in nature into the design of a building. For example, students at the New York School of Interior Design drafted a building design project that used the surrounding environment as inspiration for the home's layout. The deep canyons and hills nearby influenced the home's segmented and scatted space that incorporated indoor and outdoor garden areas. Thus, biomimicry relies on ecology to solve environmental problems. This means that the design of a process or function would imitate natural processes that belong in the same habitat or climate. Biomimicry is used to transform cities into urban ecosystems. The Bank of America building in New York is designed with air-filtering technology that allows air to leave the building three times cleaner than when it entered. If this design is replicated in multiple buildings throughout the city, the urban environment will mimic a natural forest- an ecosystem that can self-sufficiently build fertile soil, clean water, filter our pollution and keep the temperature cool. Another example of biomimicry can be seen in Mumbai, India. Janine Benyus, author of “Biomimicry”, worked with an architecture firm to implement a design that mimics an environment prone to monsoons. Building foundations grip hillsides like roots of trees, and roads mimic local anthills that remain intact during monsoon storms. One critique of biomimicry is the belief in nature being an imperfect system with inevitable flaws, which can pose risks on human ingenuity. This belief stems from the idea that nature and human culture are two separate entities rather than interdependent systems. Another critique is that methodologies like biomimicry do not directly solve problems with over consumption. Since biomimicry increases efficiency, critics believe that this could increase consumption due to an increase in demand. Personally, I think biomimicry is a useful tool not only to create sustainable environments but also to demonstrate the interconnection between modern society and natural wildlife when implemented in public spaces. This coalition can remind people to treat human innovations with the same respect and care one would give to nature. In addition, biomimicry is a good replacement for environmentally destructive and energy intensive designs and techniques. However, the methodology of biomimicry still relies on the development of new technology and is motivated by continuous economic development. Could this in some way be a masked version of ecological modernization, which states that economic development could benefit by becoming more sustainable and environmentally conscious? What do you think? Should planners, engineers, and scientists implement methodologies like biomimicry when designing the future, or does this encourage more unnecessary economic developments?
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