For a new vision of the city, inspired by nature.
How can the city reinvent itself to meet the major challenges of our time, those of the planet and of citizens, without adding costs and constraints? An innovative approach inspired by natural strategies and ecosystems allows us to envisage a city with a positive impact, regenerative, living and exciting: The biomimetic city, a city of the future!
The city has challenges to meet: air pollution, the impact of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, heat islands, massive erosion of biodiversity, water management, short food circuits, waste reduction and soft mobility are some of the issues to which cities must respond. Faced with these challenges, the city is also a citizen of the world, it can act or suffer.
Urban ecosystems are becoming increasingly dense. They will house 70% of the world's population in 2050 and are already the main emitters (2/3) of greenhouse gases. For its territorial citizens, but also for the world's inhabitants, the city is a major player in the life of tomorrow. Elected representatives, managers, manufacturers and inhabitants of the city are the decisive decision-makers of our local quality of life and of our global resilience. Biomimicry can help them to carry out meaningful and forward-looking projects.
How to face these challenges in an efficient and innovative way ?
Living beings have been meeting these challenges for 3.8 billion years of continuous research and adaptation. Drawing inspiration from this formidable library of sustainable innovations is the "bio-mimicry" approach. This approach is booming in all academic disciplines and in all sectors of activity, particularly in the professions and sectors that think, create and manage our lives in the city. France excels in these fields with 200 research teams, 100 large companies involved, schools that develop training, and a generation of entrepreneurs in the "Biomim French Tech" in full development. With a few principles based on sobriety, the circular economy and collective intelligence, the living world deploys treasures of engineering of formidable efficiency, and it too "inhabits" the Earth.
Nature inspires the city of tomorrow
Biomimicry is a tool for the cityThis new approach aims to make nature not only a landscape amenity but above all an ally for better living in the city of tomorrow. This new approach aims to make nature not only a landscape amenity but above all an ally for better living in the city of tomorrow, by ceasing to think of the city solely in terms of man, a vision of the past which has disconnected man from nature and which has ended up cutting cities off from the world around them, a dead end. This is why biomimicry is a particularly topical approach in architecture, urban planning, mobility, construction, energy, and more broadly in all current thinking on ecosystem benefits.
The smartest and most attractive cities will be those that are more resilient and have made biodiversity their allybecause the future of cities lies in nature. And this is not theoretical or remote: beyond the famous so-called ecosystem benefits (biodiversity, pollination, etc.) which are sometimes a little distant, the bio-inspired city generates very concrete and rapid benefits in terms of energy savings, but also in terms of infrastructure management, lower equipment costs and public health! A tree-lined road, for example, will cost less, help runoff, create a cool island, contribute to air quality, bring well-being, and on a large scale, as some American studies show, can even calm people down and reduce incivilities!
It is proven and tested, solutions exist, at all levels. To reduce the energy bill for air-conditioning (tomorrow's urban energy bomb) through reactive facades inspired by pine cones or ventilation chimneys inspired by termite mounds; to fight against the overheating of facades through shades that change shape like leaves or flower petals; to think of vertical urban densification thanks to lightened supporting structures inspired by bone structures or polygonal forms of the living world; to weed the soil and recreate an urban water cycle inspired by forest massifs and thus save water, refresh, and protect against the risks of flooding; to locate buildings in a district by optimising natural lighting thanks to an algorithm derived from phyllotaxis (the study of the implantation of leaves along the stems); to sequester CO2 emissions and depollute the air by bio-inspired management of species and plantations; to protect plants without pesticides by using pheromones creating sexual confusion; to recreate urban nurseries of biodiversity and life webs (green, blue, black, brown ..), to preserve and regenerate, but also to recreate a link between the inhabitants and nature (and between the inhabitants themselves through the social link); to deghettoise neighbourhoods by recreating social diversity inspired by the biocenosis of natural ecosystems; to reintroduce short food production circuits through permaculture inspired by the mutual and beneficial interactions between species; to recreate intra-urban economic interactions following the example of the virtuous connections of the biotopes ... There is no shortage of examples and experiments, all of which have in common not only an increase in efficiency but also well-being and great social satisfaction for the inhabitants.
Meeting these challenges also means meeting expectations that have become requirements
City dwellers aspire to breathe healthy air, not to suffer from all kinds of pollution, to limit their travel, to share their uses, to reduce their energy consumption and to eat healthily. They want more nature in the city, they are attracted by self-production of food and energy, by short circuits, by the idea of returning to their roots and values. These managerial issues are now also citizens' issuesWe are all citizens, actors and stakeholders of a better quality of life in cities, for cities that are simply more viable and liveable. Environmental, climate and biodiversity issues have come closer to us, in time and space. They are no longer issues for "future generations and distant populations", they are now affecting the heart of our cities and our lives. They are also opportunities to change our model and live better.
Let's reconnect with the living to reinvent our ways of living and inhabiting !
The biomimetic city welcomes biodiversity and encourages the regeneration of the ecosystems that provide us with so many services. Sober, it reduces the impact of man on his environment. Local and global, it is organised in virtuous cycles in which waste is a resource. It becomes resilient to climate change, regenerates biodiversity, and reinvents nature into our lives. Thinking of your biomimetic city means thinking of transition as a reinvention and an invitation; it also means making the city desirable, unique, attractive, exemplary, innovative and desirable for its inhabitants and for the inhabitants of the world.
A biomimetic city to re-enchant the city, for positive impact cities, plife(s) and full of future.
Writers Alain Renaudin, NewCorp Conseil - Biomim'expo; Olivier Bocquet, Tangram Architecture
Co-signatories :
Jacques Rougerie - Jacques Rougerie Foundation, Jacques Rougerie Architectes Associés, Institut de France - Académie des Beaux-Arts
Philippe Clergeau - Professor at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Department of Man & Environment - UMR CESCO / Consultant in urban ecology
Clémence Béchu - Béchu and Associates
Nicolas Vernoux-Thélot - IN SITU Architecture
Kalina Raskin - Ceebios
Tessa Hubert - Nobatek Inef4
Frédéric Betbeder - Nobatek Inef4
To be found and signed on Change.org if you too wish to see this biomimetic city... http://chng.it/SPwHRzZTXf
English 
French