ABSTRACT
As professionals of the built environment need to solve more urgent and difficult problems related to mitigating the causes of climate change and must plan for changes to the availability of common energy sources such as fossil fuels, analyzing new approaches to conserving and generating energy is becoming more important. It may be useful to examine examples of how similar problems have been solved by other living organisms or ecosystems to see if solutions suitable for a human context can be found. The mimicry of organisms and ecosystems is termed biomimicry. Biomimicry is the emulation of strategies seen in the living world as a basis for human design. This may include design of urban environments, buildings, objects, and materials. It is the mimicry of an organism, an organism’s behavior, or an entire ecosystem, in terms of forms, materials, construction methods, processes, or functions. After providing a framework for understanding and applying biomimicry to built environment design and engineering, several contemporary examples of biomimetic architecture or technologies relating to energy use and generation are examined.
