Learning from the biology of evolution: exaptation as a design strategy for future cities
Smart and Sustainable Built Environment
ISSN: 2046-6099
Article publication date: 6 January 2022
Issue publication date: 5 July 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This paper highlights the importance of transdisciplinary studies in times of crisis. In the first part, the study shows the benefits of the introduction of literature on biology to better understand the evolutionary dynamics of architecture.
Design/methodology/approach
The focus of the research concerns architectural exaptation. In biology, exaptation is a functional shift of a structure that already had a prior but different function. We will also learn that, in biology, all creative systems are redundant and involve variability and diversity.
Findings
As a conclusion, through the comparison between biology and architecture, we will, therefore, try to build an architectural taxonomy that demonstrates how indeterminism is not a subcategory of design. Instead, design paradigms in which redundancy and variable diversity of structures reflect functionalism constitute an equivalent and essential complement with respect to design determinism.
Originality/value
It demonstrates how architectural exaptation, intended as an indeterministic and radical mode of design, can contribute to overcoming the current global crisis because structural redundancy is frequently functional, mostly in ever-changing and unstable environments. For instance, the failure of a planned function of a city can be an opportunity to re-use a structure designed for an obsolete function to respond to unexpected constraints.
Keywords
Citation
Melis, A., Lara-Hernandez, J.A. and Melis, B. (2022), "Learning from the biology of evolution: exaptation as a design strategy for future cities", Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 205-216. https://doi.org/10.1108/SASBE-08-2021-0141
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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