Abstract:
This thesis investigates biomimetic strategies as a process of deriving architecture through extraction of certain biological principles, then appropriately assimilating these natural intelligent features into architecture. In addition, the consilience between biology and architecture is experimented to analyse the potential for a responsive architecture, studying architecture as a partially living organism to adapt to our ecological conditions. In our contemporary urban society, humans have inevitably become detached from the natural world through rapid urbanism, making economy and social pressure the major shapers of our built environment. The link between human and nature in our urban society tends to lose its environmental connection and neglects the ecological balance. The long term degradation of our ecology has also damaged the quality of our lifestyle, deprived our natural environment and fails to conserve space, energy, and materials. Ultimately, the prevailing approach to our modern architecture results in unsustainable resource depletion and inefficient energy consumption, as well as a series of consequential ecological crises. In response to the desperate situation of resource depletion and ecological crises, a sustainable approach in architecture must be conducted. However sustainability in architecture cannot be achieved without an interdisciplinary understanding of ecology, economy and social factors. The balance of this trigonometry becomes essential for us to investigate different disciplines and apply these studies into architecture. To further consider the relationship of ecology and architecture, the research examines the consilience of biology and architecture in parallel, in order to adopt interdisciplinary benefi ts. The project: Bio-Tecture tests biomimetic principles to design a responsive architecture for a multi-use stadium and an aquatic centre at a large gravel car park at Stanley Street, Auckland. The site is below the Owen G. Glen Building at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. It is an interdisciplinary study between the missing link of biological and architectural systems through the parallel generation of programmes, forms, and aesthetics. The aim is to further examine the biological relationship with architecture and to create an environmentally responsive, adaptive architecture. Thesis question: How does a biomimetic design process induce an environmentally responsive architecture?