In Lord Lee

Sustainability evaluation of bio-inspired construction

The construction industry’s role in shaping the built environment and promoting development places it in a critical position for achieving progress in sustainable development. By seeing nature as a source of solutions, bio-inspired construction holds promising potential for innovative approaches in shaping the built environment sustainably. However, the research on the sustainability impacts of bio-inspired construction remains limited. More specifically, it is unclear whether existing sustainability evaluation tools can capture the sustainability characteristics of bio-inspired construction.

This research aims to assess the extent to which bio-inspired construction offers new opportunities for achieving sustainable development by understanding the sustainability characteristics of bio-inspired construction through literature review and its practical implications for sustainable development through interviews.

The findings indicate that sustainability evaluation tools commonly used as a guide for sustainability in practice are not fully reflective of the potential social impacts of bio-inspired construction. Complementing the limitations of existing sustainability evaluation tools, the Design for Social Sustainability framework is proposed to enable a holistic sustainability evaluation of bio-inspired construction.

While industry’s interpretation of sustainable construction remains environmentally oriented, interview findings indicate that sustainability evaluation tools can be used as a guide to challenge project brief and identify opportunities to deliver broader sustainability impacts. The process of leveraging the sustainability characteristics of bio-inspired construction, however, is heavily subjected to an active stakeholder engagement for multidisciplinary collaboration and client’s ambitions for sustainable construction.