Creating ecologically sound buildings by integrating ecology, architecture and computational design

1. Research is revealing an increasing number of positive effects of nature for humans. At the same time, biodiversity in cities, where most humans live, is often low or in decline. Tangible solutions are needed to increase urban biodiversity. 2. Architecture is a key discipline that has considerable influence on the built-up area of cities, thereby influencing urban biodiversity. In general, architects do not design for biodiversity. Conversely, urban conservation planning generally focuses on the limited space free of buildings and does not embrace architecture as an important discipline for the creation of urban green infrastructure. 3. In this paper, we argue that the promotion of biodiversity needs to become a key driving force of architectural design. This requires a new multi-species design paradigm that considers both human and non-human needs. Such a design approach needs to maintain the standards of the architectural profession, including the aim to increase the well-being of humans in buildings. Yet, it also needs to add other stakeholders, organisms such as animals, plants and even microbiota. New buildings designed for humans and other inhabitants can then increase biodiversity in cities and also increase the benefits that humans can derive from close proximity to nature. 4. We review the challenges that this new design approach poses for both architecture and ecology and show that multi-species-design goes beyond existing approaches in architecture and ecology. The new design approach needs to make ecological knowledge available to the architectural design process, enabling practitioners to find architectural solutions that can facilitate synergies from a multi-species perspective. 5. We propose that a first step in creating such a multi-species habitat is the design of buildings with an ecolope, a multi criteria-designed building envelope that takes into account the needs of diverse organisms. Because there is no framework to design such an ecolope, we illustrate how multi-species design needs to draw on knowledge from ecology, as well as architecture, and design computation. 6. We discuss how architectures designed via a multi-species approach can be an important step in establishing beneficial human-nature relationships in cities, and contribute to human well-being and biodiversity conservation.Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog

Spéciation guidée par l'environnement‎ : interactions sur des périodes évolutionnaires de communautés de plantes artificielles

Depuis des décades, les chercheurs en Vie Artificielle on créé une pléthore de créatures en utilisant de multiples schémas d’encodage, capacités motrices et aptitudes cognitives. Un motif récurrent, cependant, est que la focalisation est centrée sur les individus à évoluer, ne laissant que peu de place aux variations environnementales. Dans ce travail, nous argumentons que des contraintes abiotiques plus complexes pourraient diriger un processus évolutionnaire vers des régions de l’espace génétique plus robustes and diverses. Nous avons conçu un modèle morphologique complexe, basé sur les graphes orientés de K. Sims, qui repose sur le moteur physique Bullet pour la précision et utilise des contraintes à 6 Degrés de Liberté pour connecter les paires d’organes. Nous avons ainsi évolué un panel de plantes à l’aspect naturel qui devaient survivre malgré des niveaux de ressources variables induits par une source de lumière mobile et des motifs de pluies saisonnières. En plus de cette expérience, nous avons aussi obtenu une meilleure croissance verticale en ajoutant une contrainte biotique artificielle sous la forme de brins d’herbe statiques. La complexité de ce modèle, cependant, ne permettait pas la mise a l’échelle d’une évolution de populations et a donc été réduit dans l’expérience suivante, notamment en supprimant le moteur physique. Cela nous a amené à l’exploration de la co-évolution de populations composées d’une unique espèce et ayant la capacité de se reproduire de manière autonome grâce à notre Bail-Out Crossover (Croisement avec Désistement). Bien que les populations résultantes n’ont pas démontré un grand intérêt pour cette aptitude, elles ont néanmoins fourni d’importantes informations sur les mécanismes d’auto-reproduction. Ceux-ci ont été mis en action dans un second modèle inspiré des travaux de Bornhofen. Grâce à sa légèreté, cela nous a permis de traiter non seulement de plus grandes populations (de l’ordre de milliers d’individus) mais aussi de plus longues périodes évolutionnaires (100 années, approximativement 5000 générations). Notre première expérience avec ce modèle s’est concentrée sur la possibilité de reproduire des cas d’école de spéciation (allopatrique, parapatrique, péripatrique) sur cette plate-forme. Grâce à APOGet, une nouvelle procédure de regroupement pour l’extraction en parallèle d’espèces à partir d’un arbre généalogique, nous avons pu affirmer que le système était effectivement capable de spéciation spontanée. Cela nous a conduit à une dernière expérience dans laquelle l’environnement était contrôlé par de la Programmation Génétique Cartésienne (CGP), permettant ainsi une évolution automatique d’une population et des contraintes abiotiques auxquelles elle était confrontée. Par une variation du traditionnel algorithme 1 + λ nous avons obtenu 10 populations finales qui ont survécu à de brutales et imprévisibles variations environnementales. En les comparant à un groupe contrôle c pour lequel les contraintes ont été maintenues faibles et constantes, le groupe évolué e a montré des performances mitigées: dans les deux types de tests, une moitié de e surpassait c qui, à son tour, surpassait la moitié restante de e. Nous avons aussi trouvé une très forte corrélation entre les chutes catastrophiques de population et la performance des évolutions correspondantes. Il en résulte que l’évolution de population dans des environnements hostiles et dynamiques n’est pas une panacée bien que ces expériences en démontrent le potentiel et souligne le besoin d’études ultérieures plus approfondies.Artificial Life researchers have, for decades, created a plethora of creatures using numerous encoding schemes, motile capabilities and cognitive capacities. One recurring pattern, however, is that focus is solely put on the evolved individuals, with very limited environmental variations. In this work, we argue that more complex abiotic constraints could drive an evolutionary process towards more robust and diverse regions of the genetic space. We started with a complex morphogenetic model, based on K. Sims’ directed graphs, which relied on the Bullet physics engine for accuracy and used 6Degrees of Freedom constraints to connect pairs of organs. We evolved a panel of natural-looking plants which had to cope with varying resource levels thanks to a mobile light source and seasonal rain patterns. In addition to this experiment, we also obtained improved vertical growth by adding an artificialbiotic constraint in the form of static grass blades. However, the computational cost of this model precluded scaling to a population-level evolution and was reduced in the successive experiment, notably by removing the physical engine. This led to the exploration of co-evolution on single-species populations which, thanks to our Bail-Out Crossover (BOC) algorithm, were able to self-reproduce. The resulting populations provided valuable insight into the mechanisms of self-sustainability. These were put to action in an even more straightforward morphogenetic model inspired by the work of Bornhofen. Due to its light weightness, this allowed for both larger populations (up to thousands of individuals) and longer evolutionary periods (100 years, roughly 5K generations). Our first experiment on this model tested whether text-book cases of speciation could be reproduced in our framework. Such positive results were observed thanks to the species monitoring capacities of APOGeT, a novel clustering procedure we designed for online extraction of species from a genealogic tree. This drove us to a final experiment in which the environment was controlled through Cartesian Genetic Programming thus allowing the automated evolution of both the population and abiotic constraints it is subjected to. Through a variation of the traditional1 + λ algorithm, we obtained 10 populations (evolved group e) which had endured in harsh and unpredictable environments. These were confronted to a control group c, in which the constraints were kept mild and constant, on two types of colonization evaluation. Results showed that the evolved group was heterogeneous with half of e consistently outperforming members of c and the other half exhibiting worse performances than the baseline. We also found a very strong positive correlation between catastrophic drops in population level during evolution with the robustness of their final representatives. From this work, two conclusions can be drawn. First, though the need to fight on both the abiotic and biotic fronts can lead to worse performances, more robust individuals can be found in reasonable time-frames. Second, the automated co-evolution of populations and their environments is essential in exploring counter-intuitive, yet fundamental, dynamics both in biological and artificial life

Spéciation guidée par l'environnement‎ : interactions sur des périodes évolutionnaires de communautés de plantes artificielles

Depuis des décades, les chercheurs en Vie Artificielle on créé une pléthore de créatures en utilisant de multiples schémas d’encodage, capacités motrices et aptitudes cognitives. Un motif récurrent, cependant, est que la focalisation est centrée sur les individus à évoluer, ne laissant que peu de place aux variations environnementales. Dans ce travail, nous argumentons que des contraintes abiotiques plus complexes pourraient diriger un processus évolutionnaire vers des régions de l’espace génétique plus robustes and diverses. Nous avons conçu un modèle morphologique complexe, basé sur les graphes orientés de K. Sims, qui repose sur le moteur physique Bullet pour la précision et utilise des contraintes à 6 Degrés de Liberté pour connecter les paires d’organes. Nous avons ainsi évolué un panel de plantes à l’aspect naturel qui devaient survivre malgré des niveaux de ressources variables induits par une source de lumière mobile et des motifs de pluies saisonnières. En plus de cette expérience, nous avons aussi obtenu une meilleure croissance verticale en ajoutant une contrainte biotique artificielle sous la forme de brins d’herbe statiques. La complexité de ce modèle, cependant, ne permettait pas la mise a l’échelle d’une évolution de populations et a donc été réduit dans l’expérience suivante, notamment en supprimant le moteur physique. Cela nous a amené à l’exploration de la co-évolution de populations composées d’une unique espèce et ayant la capacité de se reproduire de manière autonome grâce à notre Bail-Out Crossover (Croisement avec Désistement). Bien que les populations résultantes n’ont pas démontré un grand intérêt pour cette aptitude, elles ont néanmoins fourni d’importantes informations sur les mécanismes d’auto-reproduction. Ceux-ci ont été mis en action dans un second modèle inspiré des travaux de Bornhofen. Grâce à sa légèreté, cela nous a permis de traiter non seulement de plus grandes populations (de l’ordre de milliers d’individus) mais aussi de plus longues périodes évolutionnaires (100 années, approximativement 5000 générations). Notre première expérience avec ce modèle s’est concentrée sur la possibilité de reproduire des cas d’école de spéciation (allopatrique, parapatrique, péripatrique) sur cette plate-forme. Grâce à APOGet, une nouvelle procédure de regroupement pour l’extraction en parallèle d’espèces à partir d’un arbre généalogique, nous avons pu affirmer que le système était effectivement capable de spéciation spontanée. Cela nous a conduit à une dernière expérience dans laquelle l’environnement était contrôlé par de la Programmation Génétique Cartésienne (CGP), permettant ainsi une évolution automatique d’une population et des contraintes abiotiques auxquelles elle était confrontée. Par une variation du traditionnel algorithme 1 + λ nous avons obtenu 10 populations finales qui ont survécu à de brutales et imprévisibles variations environnementales. En les comparant à un groupe contrôle c pour lequel les contraintes ont été maintenues faibles et constantes, le groupe évolué e a montré des performances mitigées: dans les deux types de tests, une moitié de e surpassait c qui, à son tour, surpassait la moitié restante de e. Nous avons aussi trouvé une très forte corrélation entre les chutes catastrophiques de population et la performance des évolutions correspondantes. Il en résulte que l’évolution de population dans des environnements hostiles et dynamiques n’est pas une panacée bien que ces expériences en démontrent le potentiel et souligne le besoin d’études ultérieures plus approfondies.Artificial Life researchers have, for decades, created a plethora of creatures using numerous encoding schemes, motile capabilities and cognitive capacities. One recurring pattern, however, is that focus is solely put on the evolved individuals, with very limited environmental variations. In this work, we argue that more complex abiotic constraints could drive an evolutionary process towards more robust and diverse regions of the genetic space. We started with a complex morphogenetic model, based on K. Sims’ directed graphs, which relied on the Bullet physics engine for accuracy and used 6Degrees of Freedom constraints to connect pairs of organs. We evolved a panel of natural-looking plants which had to cope with varying resource levels thanks to a mobile light source and seasonal rain patterns. In addition to this experiment, we also obtained improved vertical growth by adding an artificialbiotic constraint in the form of static grass blades. However, the computational cost of this model precluded scaling to a population-level evolution and was reduced in the successive experiment, notably by removing the physical engine. This led to the exploration of co-evolution on single-species populations which, thanks to our Bail-Out Crossover (BOC) algorithm, were able to self-reproduce. The resulting populations provided valuable insight into the mechanisms of self-sustainability. These were put to action in an even more straightforward morphogenetic model inspired by the work of Bornhofen. Due to its light weightness, this allowed for both larger populations (up to thousands of individuals) and longer evolutionary periods (100 years, roughly 5K generations). Our first experiment on this model tested whether text-book cases of speciation could be reproduced in our framework. Such positive results were observed thanks to the species monitoring capacities of APOGeT, a novel clustering procedure we designed for online extraction of species from a genealogic tree. This drove us to a final experiment in which the environment was controlled through Cartesian Genetic Programming thus allowing the automated evolution of both the population and abiotic constraints it is subjected to. Through a variation of the traditional1 + λ algorithm, we obtained 10 populations (evolved group e) which had endured in harsh and unpredictable environments. These were confronted to a control group c, in which the constraints were kept mild and constant, on two types of colonization evaluation. Results showed that the evolved group was heterogeneous with half of e consistently outperforming members of c and the other half exhibiting worse performances than the baseline. We also found a very strong positive correlation between catastrophic drops in population level during evolution with the robustness of their final representatives. From this work, two conclusions can be drawn. First, though the need to fight on both the abiotic and biotic fronts can lead to worse performances, more robust individuals can be found in reasonable time-frames. Second, the automated co-evolution of populations and their environments is essential in exploring counter-intuitive, yet fundamental, dynamics both in biological and artificial life

Eighth Annual Conference of inVIVO Planetary Health: From Challenges to Opportunities

inVIVO Planetary Health (inVIVO) is a progressive scientific movement providing evidence, advocacy, and inspiration to align the interests and vitality of people, place, and planet. Our goal is to transform personal and planetary health through awareness, attitudes, and actions, and a deeper understanding of how all systems are interconnected and interdependent. Here, we present the abstracts and proceedings of our 8th annual conference, held in Detroit, Michigan in May 2019, themed “From Challenges, to Opportunities”. Our far-ranging discussions addressed the complex interdependent ecological challenges of advancing global urbanization, including the biopsychosocial interactions in our living environment on physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing, together with the wider community and societal factors that govern these. We had a strong solutions focus, with diverse strategies spanning from urban-greening and renewal, nature-relatedness, nutritional ecology, planetary diets, and microbiome rewilding, through to initiatives for promoting resilience, positive emotional assets, traditional cultural narratives, creativity, art projects for personal and community health, and exploring ways of positively shifting mindsets and value systems. Our cross-sectoral agenda underscored the importance and global impact of local initiatives everywhere by contributing to new normative values as part of a global interconnected grass-roots movement for planetary health

Recovering from the Recovery Narrative: On Glocalism, Green Jobs and Cyborg Civilization

In this Essay, I make a preliminary foray into new narrative terrain, identifying several emerging legal storylines that have arisen in the wake of climate change disruptions and that I predict will prove influential in the coming years. In Part I, I discuss the ways in which new perceptions of scale are re-defining human beings\u27 attachments to a sense of place or dwelling and are shaping new attitudes about what constitutes the local, posing potential problems for existing federalism schemes. In Part II, I discuss the ways in which America\u27s long history of nationalizing nature manifests in the discourse surrounding energy security, energy independence, and the green economy” – a discourse which has quickly come into conflict with existing place-based preservationist storylines. In Part III, I discuss the ways in which climate change adaptation can produce a reimagining of nature and culture as a kind of cyborg, perhaps demanding reassessment of existing environmentalist attachments, such as those encoded in the Endangered Species Act. I conclude by noting that although some of these new storylines share common origins in the Recovery Narrative, they also reflect important updates, changes, and innovations and may point in the direction of even more radical transformations that can shape our environmental future