Visions ville
Biobuilding City Systems
Learning
from
nature
DANIEL HOORNWEG
A
Daniel
Hoornweg
Lead Urban Advisor in the Bank's
Central Urban
Advisory Unit.
He has more than twenty
years experience working in
and with cities.
He joined the World Bank in
1993 and has worked in SubSaharan Africa, East Asia and
the Pacific Islands, South Asia
and Latin America and Caribbean regions.
During that time he has worked
with some 200 cities in more
than fifty projects with climate change components.
Dan's academic background
includes degrees in Earth Sciences, Civil and Environmental
Engineering.
Beginning August 2008, he
has led the Bank's Urban
program on cities and climate
change, including management of the 2009 Marseille
Cities and Climate Change
Urban Research Symposium
and urban studies related to
climate change impacts in cities
on mitigation and adaptation.
He currently is Associate Professor and Jeff Boyce Research
Chair at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and
is a member of the GDF SUEZ Urban Strategy and Innovation
Council.
BIOBUILDING CIT Y SYSTEMS :
LEARNING FROM NATURE
On a warm summer day in 1948,
while walking with his dog along
a Swiss mountain trail, George
de Mestral noticed his pants and
dog’s fur covered in burrs.
Upon returning home he ran to
his microscope to see how the
burrs clung to fabric and fur.
Upon discerning nature’s little
mystery he’s reported to have
said, “ I will design a unique,
two-sided fastener, one side with
stiff hooks like the burrs and the
other side with soft loops like the
fabric of my pants. I will call my
invention “ velcro ” (combining
velour and crochet). ” 1
Globally 2.5 billion more people
will soon call cities home.
In addition to biomimicry,
some of the other city-building
tools we can adapt from nature
include resilience, connectivity,
scalability, and hierarchies.
In The Kind of Problem a City Is
Luis Bettencourt argues that
cities are “ first and foremost
large social networks ” with
“ agglomerations of social links ”
that “enable social interactions
to form and persist ”.
This “ social amalgamation ”
serves a city’s primary role to
“ expand connectivity per person ”
and “ strive for social inclusion ”.
The invention of Velcro is a great
example of biomimicry, learning
from nature. Biomimicry is one of
the tools we now need more than
ever as cities double in size over
the next 35 years.
The job at hand is enormous:
Feed, house, provide water and
sanitation, and grow the economy
– all within an already badly
strained planetary carrying
capacity.
1
From inventors library, accessed 8-3-14: http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091297.htm
5
“ We build our cities and then
our cities in turn build our
well-being. ”
Cities are
natural
systems
that evolve
spontaneously
in human
societies,
“ as natural as
beehives and
coral reefs ”.
collective economy, culture and
utility. We build our cities and then
our cities in turn build our wellbeing. Cities also by their design
of density and connectedness are
the most efficient form for material
distribution, hence the similarities
with naturally evolving coral reefs
and beehives. We do well when we
mimic nature.
Two thoughts give pause to this
“ essence of a city ”: Sigmund Freud
and the compelling case he makes in
Civilization and its Discontent (1929)
and economist Ralph Dahrendorf
(1994) and his argument that
sustainable development poses a
contrast between “ life chances ”
(opportunities of living or potentials
for decision) versus “ ligatures ”
(established bonds of the individual
to society) 2.
Cities “ reveal at once the best and
worst aspects of humanity ” and
cities should be “ encouraged to
evolve spontaneously in the direction
of achieving the best open-ended
expressions of our collective nature ”
in order to “ fulfill our global potential
as the most social of all species ”.
Freud believed that civilization
(i.e. cities) exists to “ curb the
irrevocable ill will within the hearts
of man ”. Freud argues convincingly
in Civilization and its Discontent
that civilization is paradoxically
our largest source of happiness and
unhappiness. Man has “ immutable
instincts ” and unlike bees and fish we
are much more able to act upon these
baser instincts.
The essence of a city – a built
canvas that enables residents to
construct the social linkages needed
to maximize their personal and
2
From Marco Keiner, ed. The Future of Sustainability. Springer, 2006, p 216
7
“ That which
is not good for
the beehive
cannot be
good for the
bees ”
Dahrendorf's exploration of
ligatures and life chances need to
be addressed when investigating
sustainable cities – humans have
traditionally moved to cities to
increase life chances, all the while
being anchored, and at times
held back, by ligatures and social
norms. Cities will fail if they
cannot foster connectivity and
inclusion along with economic
opportunity.
Marcus Aurelius
Aristotle in particular, presciently
noted in Politics that people are
the most political (= urban) of all
animals. 3 We may be an urban
species but globally we only just
passed the 50% urban mark. Many
of our political constructs and
social norms still retain a rural
bias. As we shift from a rural to
urban mind-set, and build our
new cities, we will do well to keep
nature in mind.
3
Bettencourt
8
I
RESILIENCE
“ Cities and Thrones and Powers
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as f lowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and
unconsidered Earth,
The Cities rise again ”.
Cities by their nature should
be resilient, similar to nature's
ecosystems. There is growing
interest in resilience as urban
planners and managers perceive
both growing vulnerability in
urban systems and their interconnected nature, as well as
observing increasing threats,
especially climate-related
and terrorism. Resilience is a
measure of how well a city can
“ take a punch ” , how quickly
it gets up, shakes itself off and
continues to provide critical
services for residents. Are these
“ punches ” likely to come more
frequently, with greater severity,
and how does a calamity in a city
half a world away affect other
cities?
Rudyard Kipling
Throughout history cities
were routinely sacked, looted,
burned, battered by storms
and earthquakes, f looded,
faced famine and drought, and
yet cities remain humanity's
most enduring legacy. Few
corporations survive more
than 50 years; the borders
of countries are artificial,
ephemeral, most are less than
a few hundred years old. Cities
on the other hand tend toward
resilience, able to rise again
when hit by a new disaster.
Resilience is a necessary but
insufficient component of
sustainability. Sustainable
cities are “ urban communities
committed to improving the wellbeing of their current and future
residents, while integrating
economic, environmental and
social conditions ”. 4 “ Sustainable
city ” is a much broader goal than
“ resilient city ” , encompassing
economic vitality (current and
sustained), local and global
Resilience is the positive ability
of a system to adapt itself to the
consequences of a catastrophic
failure or impact. The way a
forest grows again after a fire,
or a coral reef after a massive
storm: Nature has honed its
resilience.
4
Building Sustainability in an Urbanizing World: A Partnership Report; World Bank, 2013,
Hoornweg and Freire.
11
environmental impacts below
the long-term capacity of natural
ecosystems and planetary
systems (e.g. atmospheric
carbon and biodiversity), and
nurturing social conditions such
as equity and well-being. But
resilience is a great place for a
city to start from on its journey
toward sustainability.
City leaders and managers need
to mimic nature and help cities
grow strong social networks,
build redundant and robust
critical systems like water
supply and communications, and
try to keep key infrastructure
and crucial service providers
better protected.
12
“ City leaders and managers
need to mimic nature ... ”
II
SCALABILITY
curtailed by our frailties and
insecurities. Artificial borders
and constraints may limit
the essence of cities. Again,
important lessons from nature
- make it easy for species and
materials to move across the
system and the overall system
benefits.
A mouse, a cat, an elephant, even
a gray whale – they all scale along
a common pattern called Kleiber's
law. For the vast majority of
animals their metabolic rates
scale to the ¾ power of the
animal's mass. Thus a cat, having
a mass 100 times that of a mouse
will have a metabolism roughly
31 times greater than the mouse.
Bigger animals tend to have
slower metabolisms.
Big cities count. Big “ sustainable
cities ” count even more and
in the pursuit of sustainable
development there is a premium
on larger cities (Hoornweg and
Pope, The World”s 101 Largest
Cities this Century). Scalability of
cities explains much of this
Turns out, cities follow a similar
scaling pattern: Geoffrey West
and Luis Bettencourt provide
compelling evidence that given
sufficient time and latitude to
operate under natural laws,
cities scale along consistent paths
similar to the natural world.
A doubling of population provides
about 1.2 times increase in
wealth creation and innovation,
while at only 0.8 times increased
infrastructure expenditure
(increasing returns with
economies of scale).
Double the size
of a city and
you multiply by
1.2 the benefits
and by 0.8 the
infrastructure
cost.
Bettencourt qualifies his scaling
of cities argument with the caveat
that his findings apply to the
city as a whole (i.e. metropolitan
areas). However in many cities
this ability to act as a whole is
15
Planning for urban sustainability
requires planners to address
squarely the “ demons of density ”
(Glaeser, 2011), e.g. congestion,
pollution, crime. Planners also
need to be on guard for “ the devil
in the details ”. The critical nature
of “small ” details is evident in the
greater Toronto area (i.e. Golden
Horseshoe). Ontario's urban
planners produced one of the
world's best pieces of legislation
through “ The Places to Grow Act ”.
The Act encourages excellence
in the region's built form and
recognizes most of the key drivers
and benefits of density and key
urban infrastructure. The on-theground implementation of the
Act however is poor (see Neptis
Report, Sept 2013). This “ death
of a thousand cuts ” for what is
arguably one of the best urban
planning efforts in one of the
highest functioning jurisdictions,
gives all urban planners pause.
When building cities for an
additional 2.5 billion people
over the next 35 years, these
savings in infrastructure costs
will be enormous (and probably
a pre-condition for sustainable
development).
The implications for urban
planning are significant. Cities
(as a whole) need to be able to
facilitate public networks and
social interactions across the
entire urban agglomeration.
This is a profound challenge as
all but 1 (Tokyo) of the world's
largest 26 cities are metropolitan
agglomerations with fractious
political borders and at-times
parochial interests.
Cities around the world are
experiencing more desire by
residents to interact with each
other, rather than less. Perhaps
urban planners will develop
transportation and networking
systems in larger cities that
reduce “ rush hour ” and encourage
more face-to-face meetings
throughout the week. This is
already evident in cafes, libraries
and myriad meeting places
sprinkled about every city.
Bettencourt et al, 2007 make
a compelling case for the value
of “ trunk infrastructure ” in
large cities as they grow (scale
upward). This “ bigger, better ”
infrastructure is not usually easy
to provide as almost all cities are
growing in place.
16
by “ seeing the city as a whole ”
and building infrastructure to
“ first and foremost facilitate social
networks ”;
(iii) networks of infrastructure
“ should be decentralized where
possible ”;
(iv) the price of land rises faster
with population size than average
incomes (this wealth creation
should be tapped to raise funds for
needed infrastructure), and;
(v) “ policies that increase the
supply of land per capita or reduce
transportation costs will tend to
create cities that are less dense
and that require higher rates of
energy consumption ”.
They are constrained by historic
land use patterns and urban form.
Retrofitting trunk infrastructure
is much more difficult than
building it first and letting the city
grow around the in-place urban
services (this type of growth is
also difficult to finance).
Larger cities can proceed with
relatively less infrastructure like
roads and lengths of electric cables
(about 0.8 times per doubling
of population), however urban
services like total housing and
employment, along with electrical
and water consumption remain
relatively constant (about 1
times per doubling of population).
More emphasis therefore on
conservation – water and energy
use, waste minimization – is
warranted as cities grow.
City space, infrastructure and
urban design are key aspects to
facilitate social networks and
linkages. Infrastructure and urban
design is a key enabler.
The urban planner in Bettencourt's
opinion must “ first and foremost
promote social networks that
enable social interactions to form
and persist ”. All city residents
should be able to “ avail themselves
of social networks and expand
connectivity per person. ”
If city builders want to take
advantage of nature's scaling
laws as cities grow a few key
implications include:
(i) trunk, or critical,
infrastructure needs to serve the
entire urban agglomeration, or
whole city;
(ii) the “ engineering practices
that think of the city as a
machine ” need to be ameliorated
17
III
CITY
HIERARCHIES
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
(Page 20) explain how humans
move up a hierarchy starting
with their physiological needs,
then on to safety and security,
love, self-esteem, and finally
self-actualization. Cities also
follow a hierarchy of needs and
aspiration – starting with basic
services like food and water,
shelter, and moving through
safety and security, belonging,
participation, and finally a few
cities are able to push toward
their own self-actualization.
dynamic f low, leading from
tributaries to rivers, tendrils
to large tree roots, sidewalks to
freeways, soldiers to generals,
and students to university
presidents.
The emergence of hierarchy has
important design considerations
for urban systems. “ Hierarchy
arises because it is good for
every component of the flow
system. Citizens (the rivulets of
politics) sustain the governments
that serve them; workers (the
rivulets of business) sustain the
companies that employ, and in
turn, sustain them ” ibid. The
urge to organize is natural and
selfish. Urban design evolves
around these physical and human
nature attributes. The walkways,
streets, subways and freeways of
a city; waste collection, transport
and disposal; water supply;
food provisioning; energy; and
increasingly information: all tend
toward dynamic hierarchies.
Jane Jacobs suggested, “ healthy
cities are organic, spontaneous,
messy, complex systems. ” Over
time the organic and complex
nature of city systems will tend
toward natural systems such
as tree roots, water ways and
organic structures like beehives
and coral reefs.
Dynamic f lows – lightening,
rivers, roots, traffic patterns,
pedestrians, even corporate
hierarchies – evolve into
interwoven “ tapestries ” that
interact in space and time.
Bejan and Zane illustrate how
the emergence of hierarchy is
linked to complex design and
19
SELFACTUALIZATION
morality, creativity,
spontaneity,
acceptance,
experience purpose,
meaning and inner potential
SELF-ESTEEM
confidence, achievement,
respect of others,
the need to be a unique individual
LOVE AND BELONGING
friendship, family, intimacy, sense of connection
SAFETY AND SECURITY
health, employment, property, family and social stability
PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS
breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
20
IV
BIOMIMICRY
whale-fluke inspired wind
turbine blades 5 ; Qualcom's
e-book readers that mimics the
coloration of butterfly wings; Sto
Corp's lotus leaf's self-cleaning
inspired surface finishes; the
termite mound inspired (cooling)
design of the Eastgate Centre in
Harare; kingfisher bill inspired
Japanese Shinkansen bullet
train; and gecko tape ( Feng and
Axworthy, 2011; Forbes, 2006;
and Biomimicry Guild 2014).
Standing on a busy street corner
in any large city one can't help
but see the similarity of rushing
people to ants, bees or maybe
schools of fish. Any engineer
would do well to mimic nature's
mastery of design honed over
evolution's millennia. Biomimicry
started with mimicking of
nature for product design, like
paint, turbine blades and Velcro.
More recently the design and
management of cities is also
benefitting from these lessons
of nature.
The gecko's ability to cling to
ceilings is similar to Velcro and
the 1 billion points of contact on
gecko's feet. The spine of a bison
is similar to a cantilevered bridge.
Spider silk, cement formed by
mussels, lotus leaves and their
ability to repel water and dirt, the
iridescence of a bird or butterfly,
the folding ha-ori leaf, placement
of a fruit-fly's eyes, layering of
an abalone's shell – these are all
naturally designed traits (i.e.
evolved) that provide rich input
for humanity's designs.
The concept, “ learning from
nature ”, is as old as humanity.
The idea of mimesis (to imitate)
comes from the Greek concept
mimos, as representation of
aspects of the natural world
in human actions (Marshall
and Lozeva, 2009). Engineers
have always taken inspiration
from nature – as early as 1498
Leonardo da Vinci moved from
Florence to Venice to help focus
his efforts as an engineer and
work on his “ flying machine ”.
New nature-inspired designs
are emerging, many which are
meeting commercial success.
Examples include WhalePower's
5
Modeling the tubercles of a whale flipper aka “tubercle technology’”
23
“ Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only the energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excesses from within.
Nature taps the power of limits. ”
The “ Canon of Biomimicry ” (Benyus, 1997)
24
V
EMERGING
BIOMIMICRY
efficiencies (e.g. human flows in
New York City), and;
(iii) urban (and infrastructure)
planning and maximizing the
attributes of a “ natural city ”
(with enhanced links between
urban residents and integrated
ecosystems).
A third, and rapidly growing,
stream is biomimicry in cities.
This stream can be further
partitioned into (at least) three
parts:
(i) scaling attributes and the
“ constructal law ”;
(ii) urban form, material flows,
hierarchies and enhanced
efficiencies (e.g. human flows
in New York City, Fig. 4), and;
(iii) urban (and infrastructure)
planning and maximizing the
attributes of a “ natural city ”
(with enhanced links between
urban residents and integrated
ecosystems).
Arguably biomimicry, or at least
the concept, is as old as engineering
design: dams, aircraft, buildings
have always been emulated
after the natural world. The
term biomimicry is attributed
more recently to Janine Benyus
(1997) a biologist who argues
for a “ biological approach ”:
mimicking (and enhancing) nature
and natural ecosystems. This
stream is growing largely around
specific natural world attributes
and related product design. For
example dirt-phobic paint modeled
from lotus leaves or wind turbines
emulating whale flukes.
Another stream focuses on larger
structures such as buildings.
This “ bioform ” stream, with
specialized architectural attributes,
is represented through buildings
like the Eastgate Center in Harare,
and Masdar, UAE (self-cooling wind
towers).
A third, and rapidly growing,
stream is biomimicry in cities. This
stream can be further partitioned
into (at least) three parts:
(i) scaling attributes and the
“ constructal law ”;
(ii) urban form, material flows,
hierarchies and enhanced
27
B IOMIMICRY
LIFE’S DESIGN BRIEF IS SIMPLE
LOOKING AT NATURE’S DESIGN SOLUTIONS
WHAT SHOULD WE ASK ?
HOW TO SUSTAIN LIFE ?
HOW DOES LIFE MAKE THINGS ?
BOTTOM UP - EMERGENCE - ADD INFORMATION TO MATTER
HOW DOES LIFE MAKE THINGS THAT DISAPPEARS INTO SYSTEMS ?
POWER OF SHAPE
SENSING
& RESPONDING
GECKO TAPE
CLEAN WITHOUT DETERGENT
LO CU S T ’ S CO L L I S I ON
A VO I DAN CE S Y S T E M
LO TU S
COLOR
WITHOUT
PIGMENT
RESILIENCE
& HEALING
RE MO V I N G B I O F I LM
& M I C RO BE S
LOGARITHMIC
SPIRAL
- RAMS HORNS
- NAUTILUS
- TOILET FLUSH
SOLAR TRANSFORMATIONS
SE A C RE S S JA M S S I G NA L S
TRANSPORT
CHEMISTRY
IN WATER
ENERGING-SAVVY
MOVEMENT
B I O DE G R A DAB LE
P LA S T I C S
SELF-ASSEMBLY
ECOSYSTEMS THAT GROW FOOD
& FERTILITY
I ON - B A SE D C R Y S TA L S
EVAPORATION-INDUCED
CO M P U T E R S W I T H O U T
CA R C I NO GEN S
M I C RO O P T I C S
A G R I CU L TU RE
L I KE P R A I R I E
MATERIALS AS SYSTEMS
LO O K I N G A T S HE L L S
TO SO L V E " S CA L I N G "
IN PIPES
MATERIAL UPCYCLING
LIFE CREATES CONDITIONS
CONDUCIVE TO LIFE !
NATURAL SELECTION
AS INNOVATION ENGINE
THE NEW NATUR ALISM - JANINE BENYUS
A Schematic of Biomimicry
From: Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, 1997 – summarized by the
Biomimicry Guild
29
CONCLUSION
Much of humankind's history
of city building has developed
in isolation of nature. Cities
often shelter us from nature
and natural laws, however
increasingly we are learning that
good cities are sustainable cities,
cities that nurture residents, and
grow in partnership with nature.
these cities are more resilient,
more hospital, and much more
likely to build a lasting and
durable partnership between
people and the planet.
Cities that
follow nature's
design through
biomimicry,
and adhere
to natural
hierarchies and
scaling, cities
that reflect the
organic
complexity
a city is;
31
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308pp
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32
GDF SUEZ’S
URBAN STRATEGY AND
INNOVATION COUNCIL
Urban Strategy and Innovation Council during the 2014 World Cities Summit
Launched in 2012, this hothouse of ideas brings together
independent experts to develop an integrated vision of the
city. The aim is to take a cross-disciplinary, all-encompassing
approach to urban issues and help to build “ livable cities
for tomorrow ”. The Urban Strategy and Innovation Council
has a critical role to play in questioning GDF SUEZ’s vision
and intervention methods with regard to the city. It must
also perform an advisory and vigilant role, drawing on
representatives’ specialist subjects and fields of expertise.
Finally, the Council is responsible for leading discussion on
medium and long-term planning at a Group level.
Brigitte Bariol-Mathais, Chief urban architect for the french Government,
general delegate of the National Federation of Urbanism Agencies (FNAU),
Christian Kornevall, Economist,
Daniel Hoornweg, Associate Professor and Jeff Boyce Research Chair at the
University of Ontario Institute of Technology,
Dominique Lorrain, Sociologist, research Director at the CNRS (National Center
for Scientific Research), LATTS (Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés
and ENPC (École des Ponts et Chaussées),
Erik Orsenna, Economist, writer, and specialist in sustainable development,
agriculture, and emerging economies,
Gino van Begin, Secretary General of ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability),
Jana Revedin, Ph.D. in architecture and professor of architecture and design at
the Blekinge Institute of Technology and Planning in Sweden,
Joseph Roig, Secretary General of UCLG, United Cities and Local Governments,
Margie Ruddick, landscape Designer,
Marie-Hélène Contal, Architect, member of the College of Experts of the “Global
Award for Sustainable Architecture” and of the Board of Directors of the Daw’an
Mud Brick Architecture Foundation, general Secretary of the LOCUS Foundation.
Mario Gandelsonas, Architect and theoretician in urbanism and semiotics and
Director of the Center for architecture, urbanism, and infrastructure at Princeton
University,
Nicholas You, Chairman, Urban Infrastructure Initiative (UII) Assurance for
the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), as well as
Chairman of the United Nations Steering Committee of the World Urban Campaign,
Pablo Vaggione, Urban planner with extensive experience in the field of
sustainable urban development, with special focus on rapidly growing cities,
Sara Topelson de Grinberg, Under-secretary of urban development and territory
planning, government of Mexico,
Smita Srinivas, Economic development and industry specialist. Her research
focuses on technological capabilities, industry development plans, and
employment and skills systems,
Teng Chye Khoo, Executive Director, Center for livable Cities in Singapore,
member of the World Future Foundation,
Thelma Awori, Professor, specialist in developing women's leadership in Africa,
Former Assistant Secratary General of the United Nations and Director of the
Regional Bureau for Africa of UNDP.