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Teaching Nature and Architecture: Student-Led Account of Biomimicry Innovations in the Tropics

The built environment has a huge carbon footprint, and decarbonizing it is essential in driving our sustainability efforts. We take the approach of biomimicry by working with Master of Architecture students from Taylor’s University in Malaysia. The students partake in a 14-week Nature and Architectu...

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Autores principales: Arumugam, Girirajan, Abidin, Siti Norzaini Zainal, Kusumo, Camelia May Li, Jain, Anuj
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9844408/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36648799
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics8010013
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author Arumugam, Girirajan
Abidin, Siti Norzaini Zainal
Kusumo, Camelia May Li
Jain, Anuj
author_facet Arumugam, Girirajan
Abidin, Siti Norzaini Zainal
Kusumo, Camelia May Li
Jain, Anuj
author_sort Arumugam, Girirajan
collection PubMed
description The built environment has a huge carbon footprint, and decarbonizing it is essential in driving our sustainability efforts. We take the approach of biomimicry by working with Master of Architecture students from Taylor’s University in Malaysia. The students partake in a 14-week Nature and Architecture design module at the university where they develop biomimicry solutions for the built environment with a focus on sustainability. The students undergo a three-step process of scoping the design problem in the tropical climate and urban context, researching the biological literature, abstracting design ideas, and finally, developing prototypes. The module presents an opportunity for students to study nature and immerse in experiential learning in the megadiverse geographies of Malaysia and wider tropical southeast Asia. This paper describes the student works developed in various module runs from 2017 to 2022 under the supervision of the authors. Selected student projects were analyzed thematically, curated, and classified by frequently occurring themes. Finally, their design implications and challenges faced are presented. We found the following five themes to be most commonly chosen by the students—thermoregulation, structure making, water management, daylighting and ventilation, and transport and mobility. Lastly, we also conducted postgraduation student surveys on their learnings from the module. Through our synthesis, we discuss how student works can bridge the gap of applying biomimicry into practice and the limitations thereof in mainstreaming the practice in the built environment of tropical southeast Asia.
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spelling pubmed-98444082023-01-18 Teaching Nature and Architecture: Student-Led Account of Biomimicry Innovations in the Tropics Arumugam, Girirajan Abidin, Siti Norzaini Zainal Kusumo, Camelia May Li Jain, Anuj Biomimetics (Basel) Article The built environment has a huge carbon footprint, and decarbonizing it is essential in driving our sustainability efforts. We take the approach of biomimicry by working with Master of Architecture students from Taylor’s University in Malaysia. The students partake in a 14-week Nature and Architecture design module at the university where they develop biomimicry solutions for the built environment with a focus on sustainability. The students undergo a three-step process of scoping the design problem in the tropical climate and urban context, researching the biological literature, abstracting design ideas, and finally, developing prototypes. The module presents an opportunity for students to study nature and immerse in experiential learning in the megadiverse geographies of Malaysia and wider tropical southeast Asia. This paper describes the student works developed in various module runs from 2017 to 2022 under the supervision of the authors. Selected student projects were analyzed thematically, curated, and classified by frequently occurring themes. Finally, their design implications and challenges faced are presented. We found the following five themes to be most commonly chosen by the students—thermoregulation, structure making, water management, daylighting and ventilation, and transport and mobility. Lastly, we also conducted postgraduation student surveys on their learnings from the module. Through our synthesis, we discuss how student works can bridge the gap of applying biomimicry into practice and the limitations thereof in mainstreaming the practice in the built environment of tropical southeast Asia. MDPI 2023-01-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9844408/ /pubmed/36648799 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics8010013 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Arumugam, Girirajan
Abidin, Siti Norzaini Zainal
Kusumo, Camelia May Li
Jain, Anuj
Teaching Nature and Architecture: Student-Led Account of Biomimicry Innovations in the Tropics
title Teaching Nature and Architecture: Student-Led Account of Biomimicry Innovations in the Tropics
title_full Teaching Nature and Architecture: Student-Led Account of Biomimicry Innovations in the Tropics
title_fullStr Teaching Nature and Architecture: Student-Led Account of Biomimicry Innovations in the Tropics
title_full_unstemmed Teaching Nature and Architecture: Student-Led Account of Biomimicry Innovations in the Tropics
title_short Teaching Nature and Architecture: Student-Led Account of Biomimicry Innovations in the Tropics
title_sort teaching nature and architecture: student-led account of biomimicry innovations in the tropics
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9844408/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36648799
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics8010013
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