Patterns of nature: Bio-systemic design thinking in meeting sustainability challenges of an increasingly complex world Yannis Zavoleas a, b, * a Department of Architectural Engineering, Polytechnic School, University Campus, University of Ioannina, Epirus, 45110, Greece b Built Environment, Kensington Campus, Red Centre West Wing, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Bio-systemic thinking Computing Dynamic pattern Nature design Sustainability ABSTRACT This present work weaves a thread between natural patterns and their systemic applications in architecture, urbanism and landscape design. To that end, computational approaches have greatly assisted the study of dy- namic parameters describing natural phenomena, and in physical space design as input/output algorithmic op- erations bringing together data and expertise. Apart from its direct applications, computation signifies a concept about soft data management that was developed well before computers were introduced into practice. An interest in malleable patterns guiding design during late modernism was suggestive of alternative methods responding to socioecological aims. Patterns were no longer rigid geometric references imposed upon a scheme, but ones supporting complexity, mutation and evolution as in a bio-systemic context. These earlier endeavours may set the intellectual framing of recent advancements in computing, promoting architectural thinking as a comprehensive model of cross-scientific action in analogy with nature's synergistic functions. 1. Introduction: Nature's pattern complexity Historically, patterns in architecture have been associated with Euclidean references and geometric rules being easy to repeat and to variously apply. Space, its organisational logic and structure would be regulated by systems of consistency and order. An abundance of related examples dates since the ancient times ranging from cities and urban settlements with reference to grids, centralised patterns, and their de- rivatives, to orthogonal buildings and blocks. However, repetitive geo- metric patterns are often too inflexible to meet dynamic constraints such as those attributed to the environment. Lifecycle phenomena are related to mutation, accommodation, adaptation and flexibility as nature's dy- namic operative qualities (Frazer 1995) causing to deviate from pure geometric shapes. Consequently, nature's instances are never fixed or identical, but abide by an ever-transformational logic. The results occur through replications, modifications, additions and subtractions following simple code rules, but after a few iterations a diverse system is set whose future state is not easily predictable (Burry and Burry 2010: 53). A closer examination of natural processes reveals the analogies among instances of same and different kind with regards to behavioural and structural functions that are far more profound than their visual similarities. Architects are often fascinated by nature's complexity however the vivacious character of natural phenomena is not reflected upon their works favouring instead fixity, permanency, rigidity and stasis limited to biomorphic resemblance (Hensel, 2009: 145). Nature's complexity is the outcome of ever-ending processes, whose sophistication is admittedly too difficult to manage by conventional techniques and even more, its dy- namic qualities contrast the concept of building as a finite object, nevertheless a disputed view nowadays. Complexity may not be an aesthetic feature to imitate, but a performative quality inherent to the constructed world, mostly apparent in the language patterns of growth and development of human settlements due to bottom-up responses to earth and social forces from which it unfolds rather than top-down planning (Burry and Burry 2010: 54; Hillier and Hanson 1984; Alex- ander et al., 1977). An interest in repetitive patterns counteracts nature's dynamic character, at times causing abrupt incidents of collapse, for example those labelled as “natural disasters,” being instead nature's self-reactive redistributions of large amounts of suppressed energy to restore equilibrium. Instead, fluid patterns may better align with nature's adaptive cycles. To this direction, avant-garde experiments in architec- ture and urbanism of late modernism studied complex system patterns in response to natural and socio-cultural causes. To deviate from inflexible order entails fuzzy rules, skilful strategies and techniques supporting variable, open and often imprecise input/output procedures. * Department of Architectural Engineering, Polytechnic School, University Campus, University of Ioannina, Epirus, 45110, Greece. E-mail addresses: y.zavoleas@uoi.gr, y.zavoleas@unsw.edu.au. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Developments in the Built Environment journal homepage: www.editorialmanager.com/dibe/default.aspx https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dibe.2021.100048 Received 10 July 2020; Received in revised form 3 November 2020; Accepted 18 April 2021 Available online 1 May 2021 2666-1659/© 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Developments in the Built Environment 7 (2021) 100048