ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that perhaps the most important differences between "living soils" and engineered porous media, were not the sequences of feedbacks and correlations characteristic of soils, but their disorder. The fundamental principle of constructal theory was formulated thus: "For a finite-size flow system to persist in time, its configuration must evolve in such a way that provides greater and greater access to the currents that flow through it". The notion of constructal theory is generally compatible with fractal theory, but its orientation is opposite. One of the chief characteristics of 2D constructal theory is its focus on predicting the optimal flow paths for transporting heat or fluid, from a one-dimensional boundary to a point. One could suggest that constructal theory, because of its "bottom up" perspective, is especially suited to the development of living organisms, which necessarily develop from the small to the large.
