Towards a systems biology of the built environment

Abstract

General systems and cybernetics theories indicate that systems which maintain internal steady states, while existing in variable environments, require a continuous flow of energy through themselves in order to maintain their ordered, homeostatic states. These sorts of homeostatic systems show certain behaviors which allow them to be classified as living systems, or organisms. It is shown here that buildings are homeostatic systems, which, due to their functional behavior, may be classified as living systems. The description and analysis of buildings as living systems is the systems biology of the built environment. The energy processing aspects of buildings which depend on renewable energies are graphically compared to the energy processing aspects of organisms, and they are shown to be functionally equivalent. Buildings may include the same matter-energy and information processing subsystems as simple organisms. Strategies for integrating these subsystems in buildings include having multiple systems for each job; having each system do many jobs; and having subsystem outputs become another subsystem's inputs. Buildings could eventually include the same intellegence, learning, and evolutionary subsystems and abilities as humans. The potential exists for buildings to be highly responsive to both their external environment, and to the desires of their occupants within their internal environments. The systems biology of the built environment begins to suggest ways this human-building co-evolutionary symbiosis could occur.