Symbiosis: Recalibrating Design Thinking for the Urban Environment

Abstract

Architecture is stiff, rigid, and tough to change, but in an ever-changing world, our built environment needs to be able to respond in kind. Without planning and designing for adaptability, the built environment lags behind the numerous societal and environmental dynamics that challenge our present time. Impending issues of climate change and rapid urbanization are now forcing architecture to reexamine itself and ask, how will it respond to these complex demands? In the face of this challenge, this thesis will explore a conceptually different approach to the design process that demands an inherently different product. Through an emphasis on systems thinking and development, architecture can be designed to exist within a symbiotic relationship with the natural environment, where our buildings could react and interact with the shifting nature of our culture and natural environments over time. Thus, through this strategy inspired by organic organisms, the architecture is then able to better embrace the context over time and become a truly sustainable model for urban development.