Insight into fundamental principles of design used by nature and application of same to achieve a sustainable built environment

Abstract

Architecture, for a long time, has been all about thinking of volumes and spaces in geometry of basic forms such as rectangles, triangles and circles. They are rigid, none adaptive and none sensitive. The roots of issues of built environment we face today including urban heat island, inefficient space arrangements, waste of materials and resources are rooted in this system of imagining forms and spaces with Cartesian geometry. Classical Mathematics, on which our thinking systems are grown on, has a profound impact on ultimately what we generate as built environment. Recent studies show that mathematics used by Nature to create forms and volumes are not classical but they are based on Complex Numbers and Complex Vector Spaces. If we follow the mathematics of nature, we would reach an altogether different kind of Architecture which is adaptive, responsive, sensitive and humane. With the modern day computer simulation powers, generation of such works of architecture and urban design is becoming popular. A new style of architecture is immerging under the name of Parametricism. This study points at understanding mathematics of nature such as fractal geometry and application of them through parametric design systems in order to generate more sustainable built environments.