Integrating Biomimicry and Geoinformatics: A Designerly Approach to Underwater Colonization

Abstract

Underwater space has been the subject of various scientific fields. In the field of architectural design, projects are generally limited to the areas of construction techniques for underwater as a civil engineering problem; underwater tourism; and underwater research. A much less researched area is ocean colonisation -permanent human settlement of oceans- and its architecture. This paper focuses on a case study of a workshop entitled “Mission Aquarius”, as part of the architectural design studio. It treats oceanography in the context of extreme environments, and explores the use of biomimicry as a design approach, and the use of geoinformatics as site selection method. We encouraged students to explore various stages of scientific knowledge at the design level, and to employ various CAD/CAM tools. It is important to emphasize that the curriculum is a studio-based architectural design education with limited access to scientific data. It is aimed to integrate geoinformatics and biomimicry into the design studio, and to allow students to explore new contexts for design.