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. 2022 Nov 23;7(4):212.
doi: 10.3390/biomimetics7040212.

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

Estelle Cruz  1   2 , Eduardo Blanco  1   3 , Fabienne Aujard  2 , Kalina Raskin  1
Affiliations

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

Estelle Cruz et al. Biomimetics (Basel). .

Abstract

Biomimicry is a growing field of developing environmental innovations for materials, facade systems, buildings, and urban planning. In France, we observe an extensive diversity of initiatives in biomimicry for the development of regenerative cities. These initiatives blossom in a large range of areas, from education to urban policies, to achieve a major environmental, social and economic paradigm shift. To provide a comprehensive understanding of this development at the national scale, this paper presents and discusses the diversity of the developed initiatives over the last 10 years in six main fields-education, urban policies, fundamental and applied research, design demonstrators, arts, and communication. This research is an opportunistic study based on the analysis of these initiatives enriched by the feedback of the stakeholders collected by the authors working in the field of biomimicry over the last seven years. We identify that biomimicry in France has mainly extended through individual initiatives of teachers, territorial authorities, architectural studios, or researchers rather than through the support of public policies. Putting into perspective developments in biomimicry by other countries, this cross-discipline analysis provides recommendations for the extensive development of regenerative architecture and urbanism at the national scale.

Keywords: France; architecture; arts; biomimicry; demonstrators; education; paradigm shift; public policies; research; urban design; urbanism.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study, in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data, or in the writing of the manuscript.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The development of biomimicry in architecture and urbanism understood through the hype cycle model. Content and information adapted from various sources: [8,14,17,21,22,23,24,25]. Credit: CC-BY-SA Estelle Cruz.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Built bioinspired buildings located in France (a) Ecole des sciences et de la biodiversité, Boulogne-Billancourt, 2015 © ChartierDalix – Takuji Shimmura, (b) D2 tower © Pierre Elie de Pibrac, (c) © ArtBuild, (d) © In Situ Architecture, (e) © Rougerie+Tangram, (f) © Tryptique Architecture.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Proposed projects for the Marine Biomimetic Centre of Biarritz, 2019 (a) winning project © Arotcharen architecture studio, (b) Estran © Bechu & Partners, (c) © Tangram & Tangram Lab, (d) © ChartierDalix.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Vegetal cities, © Luc Schuiten. (a) Lyon in 2100, (b) Strasbourg in 2100.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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