Biomimicry Hackathon: What solutions will future-proof the city’s infrastructure?
The design of large cities, such as Rotterdam, are mostly defined by their infrastructure. For example, the Maastunnel, the Erasmus bridge and the metro network are iconic technical constructions in Rotterdam. Various aspects are taken into account while designing new infrastructure. Always looking for the balance between dominant functionalism and a desire for the human scale. Wanting to implement beauty, image and large movements, while taking into account knowledge of structure and construction. How can we bring these various aspects together into a future-proof and multifunctional infrastructure that is integrated with the city? And can we translate ecosystem services to natural parameters what we can use to create that sweeping design?These are the underlying issues that we are going to address during this two-day hackathon. To find solutions, we will be examining the database of nature, which has been filled for over 3.8 billion years with precious knowledge to solve these types of challenges. Together we will design a future proof metro viaduct that will inspire the municipality of Rotterdam.
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Sustainable Innovation Network 2010-2012
Comments
Seems pretty obvious - yet entirely unachievable
Sorry to be a cynic, but Christmas brings that out in me.
The 3 most important principles that will "future-proof" urban infrastructure are: modularity, self-repair, and achieving balance between effectiveness and efficiency. Modularity requires a complete re-think of every design and construction method we currently use in cities. Self-repair... well, that one's pretty obvious. And increased effectiveness means giving up some efficiency - which is practically immoral to even propose these days.
And, yes, all 3 of these principles are evident in natural systems.