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Under the umbrella of biologically informed disciplines, biomimicry is a design methodology that proponents often assert will lead to a more sustainable future. In realizing that future, it becomes necessary to discern specifically what biomimicry’s “promises” are in relation to sustainable futures, and what is required in order for them to be fulfilled. This paper presents research examining the webpages of the Biomimicry Global Network (BGN) to extract the claims and promises expressed by biomimicry practitioners. These promises are assessed using current literature to determine their presuppositions and requirements. Biomimicry’s promises are expressed in terms of potential for innovation, sustainability, and transformation and appear to depend on perceived relationships between humanity and nature; nature and technology; the underlying value judgements of practitioners. The findings emphasize that in order for the communicated promise of biomimicry to be realized, a particular ethos and respectful engagement with nature must accompany the technological endeavors of the practice.

Built environment professionals must solve urgent and complex problems related to mitigating and adapting to climate change and biodiversity loss. Cities require redesign and retrofit so they can become complex systems that create rather than diminish ecological and societal health. One way to do this is to strategically design buildings and cities to generate and provide ecosystem services. This is an aspect of biomimicry, where whole ecosystems and their functions are emulated, in order to positively shift the ecological performance of buildings and urban settings. A small number of methodologies and frameworks for ecosystem services design have been proposed, but their use is not wide spread. A key barrier is the lack of translational work between ecology concepts and practical examples of ecosystem services design for a built environment context. In response, this paper presents research underpinning the creation of a qualitative relational diagram in an online interactive format that relates ecosystem services concepts to design strategies, concepts, technologies, and case studies in a format for use by built environment professionals. The paper concludes that buildings and whole cities should be expected to become active contributors to socio-ecological systems because, as the diagram shows, many strategies and technologies to enable this already exist.

Academic research has long established that interaction with the natural environment is associated with better overall health outcomes. Notably, the area of therapeutic environments has been borne out of the recognition of this critical relationship, but much of this research comes from a specific Western perspective. In Aotearoa-New Zealand, Māori (the Indigenous people of the land) have long demonstrated significantly worse health outcomes than non-Māori. Little research has examined the causes compared to Western populations and the role of the natural environment in health outcomes for Māori. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between Māori culture, landscape and the connection to health and well-being. Eighteen Māori pāhake (older adults) and kaumātua (elders) took part in semi-structured interviews carried out as focus groups, from June to November 2020. Transcribed interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis and kaupapa Māori techniques. We found five overarching and interrelated key themes related to Indigenous knowledge (Mātauranga Māori) that sit within the realm of therapeutic environments, culture and landscape. A conceptual framework for Therapeutic Cultural Environments (TCE) is proposed in terms of the contribution to our understanding of health and well-being and its implications for conceptualising therapeutic environments and a culturally appropriate model of care for Māori communities.

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By 2050, 68% of the world’s population will likely live in cities. Human settlements depend on resources, benefits, and services from ecosystems, but they also tend to deplete ecosystem health. To address this situation, a new urban design and planning approach is emerging. Based on regenerative design, ecosystem-level biomimicry, and ecosystem services theories, it proposes designing projects that reconnect urban space to natural ecosystems and regenerate whole socio-ecosystems, contributing to ecosystem health and ecosystem services production. In this paper, we review ecosystems as models for urban design and review recent research on ecosystem services production. We also examine two illustrative case studies using this approach: Lavasa Hill in India and Lloyd Crossing in the U.S.A. With increasing conceptualisation and application, we argue that the approach contributes positive impacts to socio-ecosystems and enables scale jumping of regenerative practices at the urban scale. However, ecosystem-level biomimicry practices in urban design to create regenerative impact still lack crucial integrated knowledge on ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services productions, making it less effective than potentially it could be. We identify crucial gaps in knowledge where further research is needed and pose further relevant research questions to make ecosystem-level biomimicry approaches aiming for regenerative impact more effective.