Biotic analogies for self-organising cities

Claire L Narraway, Oliver SP Davis, Sally Lowell, Katrina A Lythgoe, J Scott Turner and Stephen Marshall
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Claire L Narraway: University College London, UK
Oliver SP Davis: University of Bristol, UK
Sally Lowell: University of Edinburgh, UK
Katrina A Lythgoe: University of Oxford, UK
J Scott Turner: SUNY ESF, USA

Environment and Planning B, 2020, vol. 47, issue 2, 268-286

Abstract: Nature has inspired generations of urban designers and planners in pursuit of harmonious and functional built environments. Research regarding self-organisation has encouraged urbanists to consider the role of bottom-up approaches in generating urban order. However, the extent to which self-organisation-inspired approaches draw directly from nature is not always clear. Here, we examined the biological basis of urban research, focusing on self-organisation. We conducted a systematic literature search of self-organisation in urban design and biology, mapped the relationship between key biological terms across the two fields and assessed the quality and validity of biological comparisons in the urban design literature. Finding deep inconsistencies in the mapping of central terms between the two fields, a preponderance for cross-level analogies and comparisons that spanned molecules to ecosystems, we developed a biotic framework to visualise the analogical space and elucidate areas where new inspiration may be sought.

Keywords: Self-organisation; niche construction; urban design; analogy; biological comparison (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirb:v:47:y:2020:i:2:p:268-286

DOI: 10.1177/2399808319882730

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