Environmental Knowledge as Design Development Agent

Linking knowledge learnt from nature with concepts of man-made product generation, Biomimetics represents an application of environmental knowledge on engineering design. In this paper, an exploratory approach that is based on the concepts of Biomimetics and their potential transformations into design processing agents is introduced. The approach is tested as a project that applies knowledge inspired by organisms in their natural biomes for the derivation of architectural designs. The project is implemented in a digital architectural design studio in order to model metamorphosis and simulate adaptations of products. The results of the project implementation seem to encourage adopting its associative environmental problem-solving techniques and inter-disciplinary methods as alternatives or complementary to conventional functional- or formal-oriented problem-solving approaches.