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01 / Our approach
Nature offers principles. Research makes them possibilities.
A meeting point for biology, building science and the people shaping our built environment.
Biomimicry New Zealand connects research, design and industry perspectives to explore how buildings can use less energy, respond to their surroundings and support the people inside them.
We look beyond the appearance of nature to the processes that make living systems work. The next step is shared enquiry: modelling, testing and translating those principles into architectural practice.
What if a building envelope could learn when to shade, when to admit light and how to respond to changing conditions?
A three-year research programme is investigating biomimetic façades through machine learning, motorised shading and additive manufacturing. The aim is to improve how dynamic systems are designed and evaluated under real-world conditions.
MBIE Endeavour Fund / Smart Ideas · $999,999 over three years. Bodeker Scientific · Principal investigator: Dr Negin Imani
From environmental signal to architectural response
01 / EnvironmentSense.
Light. Heat. Moisture.
02 / IntelligenceLearn.
Model. Evaluate. Optimise.
03 / EnvelopeAdapt.
Shading. Movement. Material.
A research direction, expressed as a system.
Building energy performance
From biological insight to measurable behaviour.
Connecting thermal adaptation in nature with modelling and experimentation in buildings. The ThBA framework and earlier façade studies provide foundations for asking better performance questions.
Plant-inspired microstructures and moisture-responsive materials open another line of enquiry: movement driven by material behaviour, alongside motorised approaches to adaptation.
For the people who commission, design, construct, operate and study our built environment.
Industry & infrastructure
Connect research to practice.
Have a building-performance question, a potential demonstration site, or expertise in construction and fabrication? Explore where a research collaboration could begin.
Connect disciplines, develop a joint proposal or discuss support for experimentation and knowledge exchange. Help shape the questions and the evidence needed to answer them.
Share a study, a method or a considered idea from your field. We welcome proposals for contributions that make nature-inspired design more accessible and useful.
Make nature-inspired thinking part of your practice.
Explore the research, bring a question from your discipline, or tell us what would help you apply these ideas. We are gathering interest in workshops and future certificate programmes for students, researchers and built-environment professionals.
Future programmes will be announced with their scope, assessment and certificate details when available.
