Page 84 - Build 153

Departments/Innovation
By Dr Maibritt Pedersen Zari, Lecturer, Victoria University, Wellington and Estelle Cruz, Engineering Student, École Centrale Lyon, France
Growth in living buildings
Mimicking the shapes and materials of nature typi es the emerging eld of living building design. Although requiring a rethink of traditional design, it could deliver buildings more sympathetic to people and the environment.
CH2 in Melbourne.
BUSINESS AS USUAL in the New Zealand built environment typically means conventional approaches to building design and construction. Although green or high-performance building design is increasing, in most existing and newly constructed buildings in New Zealand, few environmental sustainability issues have been considered.
Living buildings
Currently, there are exciting architecture, urban design and research projects and networking opportunities related to the idea of living buildings design. This is in line with the growth of similar ideas and design experiments internationally.
There is no set de nition of what a living building is, but it may include:
● aspectsofbiomimicry
● biophilia
● regenerativeorpositivedesign
● projectsexploringtheLivingBuildingChallenge(LBC)
● buildingsthatincorporatelivingplantsorwaterintheirexterioror
interior.
Biomimicry
Biomimetic architecture is examining living organisms or whole ecosystems as models for designing buildings or urban environments. Not all biomimicry has increased sustainability as its motivation. However, there are many projects internationally showing it can potentially be a useful tool to improve sustainability outcomes in the built environment.
Mimicking how whole ecosystems work or what they are able to do rather than a single aspect of an individual organism generally results in better sustainability outcomes.
Biophilic design
Biophilic design is the exploration and articulation of relationships between nature, built environments and human physical and psycho- logical wellbeing.
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