Practices, including Unknown Works, Atelier Architecture + Design Studio Bark and Tonkin Liu, explain how the majority of their projects demonstrate the use of biologically-inspired approaches, such as bioregionalism, biophilia, and biomimicry.
Co-evolving with nature
Responses to the practice questions were assessed by Architects Declare members Carrie Behar, Laura Baron, Tom Gibson, Kevin Logan, Anna Pamphilon, Kat Scott, and Jacqueline Wheeler, with expert input from RAI ambassador Phoebe Tickell – renegade scientist, systems thinker and social entrepreneur.
Projects Question 3
Do the majority of projects demonstrate the use of biologically- inspired approaches, such as bioregionalism, biophilia, biomimicry, ecomimicry (also referred to as ecosystems thinking, industrial ecology, or industrial symbiosis) or BioTRIZ?
Front-runner
Unknown Works
We draw from ecosystems, not for their appearance but for their structural and functional intelligence. Our goal is to design built environments that are efficient, adaptive, and ecologically integrated. Projects, such as The Armadillo shell structure, the living laboratory roofs at the Atlantic Temperate Rainforest Research Station, and the porous façade of the Beehive Theatre, exemplify our use of biomimicry and systems thinking in architecture. By translating natural processes into design strategies, we create buildings that are both resilient and regenerative, and are able to respond to environmental stresses, while contributing positively to their ecosystems. This approach fosters a deeper alignment between human-made systems and the ecological contexts in which they operate.
Runner-up
Atelier Architecture + Design
We use biophilia, but we also question it. Rather than bringing nature to buildings, we ask how buildings can be brought to nature – reshaped by landscape, climate and place. This mindset shapes our Pioneer Nature Method, which draws on lived experience in wild environments: mountains, fjords, deserts and forests. These encounters heighten awareness of ecological systems and inform how we design. In recent projects, we’ve explored bioregionalism, including a mountain retreat and a micro-city vision for Iceland, rooted in geothermal energy and decentralised infrastructure. We’ve collaborated with geomantic consultants to map hidden rivers, align with landscape features, and deepen our understanding of place.
We don’t use nature as a backdrop, we see it as a co-designer. Through site immersion, seasonal rhythm and ecological curiosity, we seek to create buildings that feel inevitable – shaped by the land, not imposed on it.
Ones to watch
Studio Bark
We approach architecture, landscape, and people as a co-evolving whole. We work with specialists, such as ecologists, arboriculturalists, landscape architects and hydrologists, to seek a beneficial outcome for ecology; involving communities to ensure connection between land and people. We apply bioregionalism to all projects, through mapping and sourcing local materials. An example of this is Thatch House, where options were presented for sawmills, quarries, and thatchers within ten miles of the site. However, in order to create a low-impact house with steel screw-piles, PV panels, and heat pumps, some materials were required to come from further afield. The approach is to create a hierarchy of sourcing, so that whatever can be procured locally, will be. Our public art project, Making A Stand, was an exercise in bioregionalism, with the timber procured locally and the supply chain journey forming part of the artwork itself, via online storytelling.
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Nature is an important influence on our work. The concept diagram for the Woodland Trust HQ (2010) was inspired by the shape of an unfurling leaf.
Neonatal Intensive Care at Bath RUH (2011) demonstrated the value of natural materials in healthcare buildings on the well-being of patients.
Thornton Building for Bioinformatics at Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton (2025), used biophilia as a key design component for well-being at the core of the design.
The renovation of Arup Associates’ Mountbatten House (2024) included the establishment of new planting within the hanging gardens.
Eden Project Dundee (RIBA stage 4 2025) and Bristol Zoo Project (on site) start with nature for a regenerative future.
On all projects, the connection to nature is vital to their success, and close design collaboration with landscape architects a prerequisite.
Marks Barfield Architects
MBA’s approach to structural efficiency and expressions takes regular inspiration from nature. Projects include the competition-winning Bridge of the Future – a structure inspired by the spine of a dinosaur; The Spiral Cafe, based on the Fibonacci spiral; and Cambridge Central Mosque with timber tree-like columns, which use passive principles to ventilate/light the space like a forest. We are currently designing a building with a hexagon-shaped plan, using the structural strength and efficiency of the hexagon shape (used throughout nature in beehives, carbon molecules, snowflakes, etc) to minimise the structural material. Across projects, we are mapping materials local to our sites at the early stages to inform the design proposals, with the aim of reducing carbon and benefitting the local economy. We use biophilia across our projects. For example, the central atrium of the Lantern (a mixed-use office building) acts as a ‘forest floor’ with a rill, large trees, and planting.
Tonkin Liu
Our 2009 invention, Shell Lace Structure, uses biomimicry – applying the structural principles abstracted from mollusc shells, techniques of tailoring, and tools in advanced digital modelling, analysis and fabrication. All of our design has been developed as adaptive and responsive systems. We actively integrate elements from nature: sunlight, rainfall and wind; not just as resources for consumption and energy production, but as integral centre-stage features providing sources of sensual delight: sight, sound, texture. In our competition-winning design of Grosvenor Square Gardens, we engaged the local community with a strong remit on urban ecology, inviting hydrology experts onto public discussion forums. At the end of this phase of public engagement we were heartened that one of the community priorities was to ‘see, hear, and touch water.’