An Evolving Understanding of Urban Ecology

Presentation for the Urban Ecologies Conference in Toronto

At the Urban Ecologies conference in Toronto on June 20 – 21, I presented with Bruce Hinds and Ian Clarke on Information and Complexity in Urban Ecology.

Sponsored by Autodesk, our research has focussed on biology and ecology as sources of inspiration for building science. As software becomes increasingly sophisticated in gathering and processing data, there is tension on how this will influence the design and management of buildings. If any information can be collected, what should be collected, and what is the purpose?

In our short review presentation we outlined our own evolution of inspiration and how we see it impacting the built environment.

Learning from specific organisms has been the base line for most of the practices of sustainability and biomimicry.

Organism – Barrel Cactus

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