#ecomimicry

[goodbyeolepaint]

If we intend to live in a world of perpetual growth, we have to depend on services that are deeply integrated into the systems that provide life on this planet. We will have to stop asking only architects, planners, and engineers how to rethink the built environment and start asking conservation biologists and ecologists.

Re-imagining Infrastructure | Metropolis POV | Metropolis Magazine via buffleheadcabin

[bureauofoystertecture-blog]

new infrastructure

for more than six months now, i've been desperately trying to put into words what ecomimicry would be.  i'm starting to figure it out: ecomimicry is new infrastructure - not where people and engineers try to make existing infrastructure more efficient or more sustainable, but new stuff that isn't typically thought of as an option.  i'm starting a series of articles for treehugger.com about what i think are some emerging new infrastructures...as well as options that could change the way we see solutions at the infrastructural level.  things like oyster-tecture, private mass transit, net zero, urban wilderness, micro-cars and mobile zero energy.  these equal a suite of techniques to revitalize the backbone of the United States in green and ecological ways without having to spend gigantic amounts of money to do it.  these techniques address hard infrastructure and not soft infrastructure like healthcare and education.  there are some options within soft infrastructure as well, namely biophilia.  healthcare providers have to reinvent the way they approach and construct healthcare facilities.  hospitals should be interconnected with the communities they serve....acting as much as community centers (spiritually and culturally) as much as they act as places to heal people (spiritually and physically).  

we have to give up the notion that we can redesign the world by trying to keep the old infrastructure. things like the energy grid and massive waterworks will need to be replaced by ecological services and human-design that integrates with ecosystems.  smart grids and renewable energy often take on the same character and size as standard energy projects. this isn't helping us live in harmony with nature.  

cities, urbanized spaces, suburbs, metropolitan areas and megalopolises will need to reshape themselves to fit into the context of ecomimicry.  Eco-master planning and ecological land use planning will need to take first seed in urban design, architecture and regional planning.  new infrastructure is not about smart grids or solely depending on technologies.  the tendency for people to look to technology for results is an older behavior than our understanding of ecosystematic functions.  technology is, in essences, the more primitive approach for societal change and method to manage our relationship to nature.   

i'm currently working on an oyster-tecture project in Myrtle Beach, SC that is in its 4th year. we are beginning to take the successes of the last several years and expand them to the larger region of the Grand Strand. i've been working to get more involved with the oyster projects in NYC for the last few months, but nothing has really happened with that yet. 

I'm excited about the new infrastructure series.  it will be the first time since i finished my book that i'll have some space to write about infrastructural issues in a way that tries to find new solutions to our pressing environmental problems.  i'm excited about the projects that my company is taking on too.  they are interesting, innovative and challenging.  each project is teaching me how to bring to life ecomimicry within the constraints of standard design and construction.  i hope to be busier and busier, there is still lots to learn. 

[bureauofoystertecture-blog]

What does ECOMIMICRY mean?

ECOMIMICRY [ek-oh-mim-ik-ree]: noun, ecology, architecture, infrastructure and biodiversity, verb, adjective: design, construction, planning, biology

 1. the act of integrating ecological services into human development for the benefit of biodiversity and societal gains

 2. the use of nature as a template of ecosystem implementation within human development that focuses primarily on nature

3. the design of the built environment, architecture and engineering systems as artificial ecosystems to emulate the properties, structure, functions and processes of ecosystems in nature

Origin: 2005–11; eco + mimicry