Can Biomimicry Be a Useful Tool for Design for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation? - Biotechnologies and Biomimetics for Civil Engineering - page 85

Table 4.2 (continued)
Level of biomimicry Example—A building that mimics

termites:
The building is assembled in the same
way as an (termite) ecosystem;
principles of succession and increasing
complexity over time are used for
example

Process The building works in the same way as

an (termite) ecosystem; it captures and
converts energy from the sun, and
stores water for example

Function The building is able to function in the

same way that an (termite) ecosystem
would and forms part of a complex
system by utilising the relationships
between processes; it is able to
participate in the hydrological, carbon,
nitrogen cycles, etc. in a similar way to
an ecosystem for example

When biological analogues are matched with human identified design prob-
lems, the fundamental approach to solving a given problem omits examining the
issue of how buildings relate to each other and the ecosystems they are within. The
underlying causes of a non-sustainable built environment are not necessarily
addressed when mechanisms and structures found in biology are incorporated into
an existing inherently unsustainable engineering or architecture paradigm (Vincent
2010 ). This is typical of most current attempts at architectural or engineering
biomimicry 3 (Vincent 2010 ) and could be a reason for the lack of measurable
improved sustainability outcomes attributable to biomimicry either architecturally
or generally.
The Bionic Car (Fig. 4.1 ) again illustrates the point. Compared to a standard
non-biomimetic car, it is efficient in terms of fuel use because the body is more
aerodynamic due to the mimicking of the box fish. It is also more materially
efficient through mimicking tree growth patterns to identify the minimum amount
of material needed in the structure of the car. The car itself, however, is not a new
approach to transport. Instead, small improvements have been made to existing
technology without a re-examination of the idea of the car as an answer to personal
transport. It is also no more fuel or materials efficient than ultra-efficient cars
designed without employing biomimicry. Because the impression is given that it
looks fish-like, it is somehow more sustainable; the car has been criticised for
being an example of biomimicry green-wash (Gebeshuber et al. 2009 ).