Biomimicry in French Urban Projects: Trends and Perspectives from the Practice

Abstract

Biomimicry is a design framework with growing interests in sustainable architectural and urban design practice. Nevertheless, there is a significant lack of studies and knowledge regarding its practical application. In 2020, a French workgroup called Biomim’City Lab published a document identifying and describing 16 urban projects designed by French teams integrating biomimicry at various levels. Our research is an opportunistic study analyzing this data, aiming to identify trends and challenges in the French market. We analyzed the projects using a mixed-method approach, through quantitative typological analysis and qualitative narrative analysis. This sample of French projects indicates a trend of increasing interest in biomimicry on built space projects in France. Biomimicry was primarily applied at the façade/roof/soil systems, mostly using macroscopic models as ecosystems, plants, and animals. Designers declared to aim diverse objectives with the biomimetic approach; still, thermal comfort is the most recurrent in the sample. We also identified that challenges remain to foster the field application, as the lack of awareness of the urban fabric stakeholders on the topic and the gaps between research and design practice.

Novel optical applications inspired by the Morpho butterfly’s coloration: technology transfer from reflection to transmission

“…Furthermore, it should be emphasized that in recent global trends, biomimetics is applied to learning from an ecosystem such as the forest and/or sea rather than an individual biological species, then its application is expanded to architecture, civil engineering, and/or city planning rather than a single material or article. [50][51][52][53] Biomimetics and NIL are the focused target of this issue, then we hope that the value of these fields will be conveyed to the readers by taking our research as an example.…”

The Fractal Approach in the Biomimetic Urban Design: Le Corbusier and Patrick Schumacher

“…Sustaining the needs of life provides opportunities by producing solutions to today's problems [35][36][37][38]. Reference is given to his designs by examining the solution of everything he can design in the dimensions of organism level, behavior level, ecosystem level, and functional level [39][40][41]. These principles are described in Table 1 as biomimetic levels.…”

Has Biomimicry in Architecture Arrived in France? Diversity of Challenges and Opportunities for a Paradigm Shift

“…In this section, we looked at design demonstrators such as buildings or façade systems built over the last 10 years and referred to as bioinspired. They were designed by French architecture studios, which have also designed worldwide biomimetics projects, as reviewed by Blanco et al [ 28 ]. The diversity of demonstrators is presented in Table 1 .…”

“…The Ceebios’ bioinspired habitat section focuses on (i) the facilitation of working groups for academics and industrial partners to increase collaboration [ 30 ], (ii) the development of training for professionals, postgraduate, and undergraduate students in partnership with French Institutions [ 31 , 32 ], (iii) assisting building constructors, architecture studios and French policies for the development of bio-inspired urban planning, buildings or facades [ 33 , 34 ] and, (iv) developing research on bio-inspired architecture and urban design [ 35 , 36 ]. Among all these actions, the authors observe that the development of biomimetic building demonstrators has been the main initiative, as recently documented by Blanco et al [ 28 ], and Chayaamor-Heil et al [ 37 ].…”

“…In France, biomimicry is a growing field of innovation in different topics [ 26 , 27 , 28 ]. In 2011, the French translation of the book ‘ Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature ’ by Janine Benyus constituted a turning point in reaching a wider audience [ 1 ].…”