Bio-Inspired Planning and Design—Using Life’s Principles and Biomimicry as a City Building Tool
The Chinese Society for Urban Studies (CSUS), the Center for Design & the City at the American Architectural Foundation (AAF), and OTIS hosted the first Sino-U.S. City Design Summit in Zhuhai, China, July 16–17, 2013. The Summit was held in conjunction with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development’s 2013 Conference on Urban Development and Planning. The Conference drew an audience of more than 1,500 Chinese mayors, government officials, developers, and city planners. At the Summit, delegate Monte Wilson of Jacobs presented on the potential of biomimicry to serve as a guiding principle for the future of sustainability and urbanization.
By all expert accounts, we are living in the century of the City. Global demographics and current development trends clearly illustrate the magnitude of growth in India, China, and other developing countries, while North America and Continental Europe grapple with the needs of aging infrastructure, water demands, and urban reinvestment.
In responding to this great need, city planners, urban designers, engineers, technologists, environmentalists, economists, and government officials all seem to be on the same path and in search of the same outcome: true sustainability. This is evident by the myriad of studies, research efforts, and pilot projects that are focused on creating sustainable projects, communities, and ultimately the sustainable city. There are numerous global rating systems focused on measuring success and several projects being touted as the first to achieve this ever elusive goal.
These complex problems require complex solutions…solutions that can only be developed and delivered at scale by multidisciplinary teams with the necessary depth of resources and talent. Large design and engineering firms and thought leaders are developing and marketing a sustainable cities offering while technology giants IBM and Cisco are attacking the problem with integrated technology solutions. The industry, and the world, are focused on finding lasting solutions to the problems created by the “Century of the City.”
We believe there is an answer, or at least the means for finding the answer, that lies right in front of us.
“Every design guideline that we need to plan the future already exists…in the bottomland hardwood forest and the tall grass prairie. Go outside. Quiet your cleverness. Listen to the lessons of the natives….”
– Janine Benys, Co-Founder Biomimicry Guild
Biomimicry is the art and science of applying nature’s genius to the most challenging business and design problems. Jacobs has adopted biomimicry as the basis for our planning and urban design process. In collaboration with our partners at Biomimicry 3.8, we have developed an approach we call CHALK.
Jacobs’ CHALK methodology is a systems-based approach inspired by Biomimicry’s Life’s Principles. It integrates the complexity of natural and man-made systems to achieve social, environmental, and economic sustainability. CHALK provides a framework allowing us to examine overlapping, interdependent systems that influence the triple bottom line of a project, an organization, or a community.
As a natural phenomenon, CHALK is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock. It is a form of limestone that is composed of calcite and other minerals and is created over time under deep pressure. It is a layered and structured network made up of multiple parts. It is strong, and it serves many purposes. It is also a tool used to think, to teach, and to learn. It is flexible and erasable and therefore provides a framework for developing and evolving ideas. It is a tool for thinking.
A Biomimetic Approach to Urbanism
One of the challenges we face in achieving sustainability goals is how to design with an integrated, holistic systems approach. Most current measurement tools or quality standards simply don’t account for the multifaceted nature of systems. Using biomimicry as a design ethos for sustainability, we can learn from nature how to adapt our designs to fit the planet.
In addition to emulating the survival strategies of specific creatures, biomimetic design emulates general patterns and processes found in nature: Life’s Principles. These are the ubiquitous patterns and processes that we experience in the natural world, including the use of free energy (current sunlight), benign manufacturing (aqueous, low-temperature processing), optimization rather than maximization (using shape and information rather than material), local adaptation (feedback), and built-in resilience (diversity and redundancy).
With our Jacobs’ CHALK approach, designers can use Life’s Principles as nature’s eco-design checklist. Each principle alone is thought-provoking. Together, they form a unified, systemic vision for life-friendly place making—all based on research analyzing how the earth’s most successful survivors have collectively solved problems over the past 3.8 billion years.
Monte Wilson is a senior planner and designer responsible for defining the future of Jacobs global planning and urban design practice. He has over 20 years of experience on a range of projects, including new towns, campus master plans, and mixed-use and transit-oriented developments for clients in North America, China, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Morocco, Panama, and India. Monte graduated from Texas A&M University with a bachelor of science in landscape architecture.
Jacobs, with 2012 revenues of nearly $11 billion, is one of the world’s largest and most diverse providers of professional, technical, and construction services, including all aspects of planning, architecture, engineering, construction, operations, and maintenance as well as specialty consulting. Founded in 1947, Jacobs serves a broad range of companies and organizations, including corporate, commercial, industrial, institutional, and government clients across multiple markets and geographies. With an integrated network of over 65,000 employees located in 200+ locations worldwide, the company prides itself on building long-term relationships with its clients. www.jacobs.com
Featured image of Project Haiti, a biomimicry building in Port-au-Prince courtesy of HOK.
