The Role of Ecomimicry in Future Urban Settings

THE ECOTOPIA 2121 PROJECT PREDICTS AND PLANS FOR THE PROSPERITY OF FUTURE GREEN URBAN FORMS USING A VARIETY OF METHODS. ONE SUCH METHOD IS ECOMIMICRY, AS SHOWN BELOW.

Ecomimicry is a socially-responsible and ecofriendly form of 'bio-inspired design'. Ecomimicry involves mimicking local animals and plants (or their ecological settings) to produce sustainable, ecofriendly, socially-attuned designs, innovations, artworks and technologies. Here, below, we feature some examples of cities from the Ecotopia 2121 project that are forecast to use ecomimicry in their settings.

MINSK in the FUTURE

This vision of future Minsk envisions a furry roof (which mimics the fur of the local European Brown Bear) to insulate buildings from the city's bitter winters.

Minsk in the Future

GREENVILLE in the FUTURE

The 'Sunflower Homes' of Future Greenville are shaped to passively mimic the botanical phenomenon of "heliotropism"; the sun-tracking behavior of various types of plants. This behavior allows plants to maximize their collection of solar rays as they turn the faces of their leaves and flowers to slowly follow the sun in its daily journey across the sky. The most famous of the heliotropic plants are the sunflowers. If you can draw the path of a sunflower bloom as it moves across a plane to follow the sun, then fashion that shape into a 3D building, you end up with the shape of the 'Sunflower Home'.

Greenville in the Future

SAN DIEGO in the FUTURE

This submarine suburb of future San Diego is an adaptation to global sea level rise and coastal erosion. The oceanic architecture mimics the California kelp forests in arrangement and the abalone shell in structure in order to handle the dynamic forces of the sea.

San Diego in the Future

As explained in this manifesto, ecomimicry is similar to other "nature-inspired design methods" (such as biomimicry). However, ecomimicry is much more intent on the 'social' and the 'ecological' ramifications of design. Whereas "biomimicry" may not involve eco-friendly technological design, and is invented and regulated by experts without much democratic input, “ecomimicry,” aims to operate to be:

• Inherently sustainable from an environmental and social point of view

• Encouraging of decentralization and localism

• Democratic when it comes to decision-making

• Understood by all, not just by the experts

• Sensitive to the need to fairly disperse power rather than to concentrate it.