THE ROLE OF NATURE FORM VERSUS LIFE PRINCIPLES IN ACHIEVING SUSTAINABILITY OF BIO-MIMIC ARCHITECTURE: MEASURING THE GAP OF CONTEMPORARY EGYPTIAN PRACTICE OF BIO-MIMIC ARCHITECTURE

Abstract

Architecture manifestation of nature is not new; through history, architects try to manifest nature, they always consider nature as big source of inspiration. The last few decades witnessed a scientific revolution caused deep understanding of nature form and life principles. Many Architects tested the contributions of such principles to architecture they ranged their manifestation of such principles between achieving form and performance oriented architecture. This research investigates the role of nature form versus life principles in achieving sustainability of nature, and how that can be reflected on architecture sustainability; with special reference to evaluate and measure the gap of contemporary Egyptian architecture manifestation of nature.To achieve this goal the research go through interlocking steps, first the nature form and life principles are investigated and their reflections to architecture are documents. Second the impacts of nature form and life principles on nature sustainability are investigated and their reflections on architecture are documented. Fourth, different evaluation criteria are deduced and used to deduce different approaches of architecture manifestation of nature in term of form vs. life principles and Formal vs. Performance oriented manifestation. Finally: The deduced criteria and classification are used as evaluation tool to measure the gap between theory and contemporary Egyptian practice of architecture manifestation of nature.The study concluded to deduce five modes of architecture manifestation of nature; they are ranged between complete biomorphic formal oriented architecture and complete bio-function performance oriented architecture. It also concluded how big is the gap between theory of bio-mimic architecture and contemporary practice in Egypt.