Biomimicry: A Tool to Achieve Sustainability in Interior Spaces

Nowadays the world is facing serious environmental problems such as global warming, pollution of air, water and soil, floods and droughts. A big part of these problems is caused by unconscious and excessive consumption of world resources by human beings. The building industry in general has a major role in a lot of environmental problems. For this reason, it is very important that the architects and interior architects adopt more environmentally friendly and sustainable design strategies to reduce these problems. Sustainability in general can be described as meeting or satisfying the needs of the current generation without diminishing or compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The concept of sustainability is very important in interior architecture as well. To ensure sustainability in interior spaces, it is first necessary to know the interiors with all their components, to know the expectation of sustainability in the interiors, and perhaps most importantly, to use a method that can create this. This is where biomimicry comes into play. The biomimicry method offers one of the most effective methods on the path to sustainability. The reason why biomimicry is powerful in terms of sustainability is that it derives its power from nature and the ability of natural organisms to survive for millions of years. This study has two main aims. The first aim is to determine what the environmental sustainability considerations in design of interior components are and to examine how biomimicry can help to achieve sustainability in interiors. As the first step of the study the sustainability requirements for various interior components and biomimicry design examples in the issues related to the interior architecture are searched. Then, a guide has prepared to be used by the interior architects where briefly the requirements to have sustainable interior components and examples of biomimicry designs that can help to achieve those goals are compiled. The study tends to create a tool to help interested interior designers in achieving more sustainable interior environments and to increase the use of biomimicry in interior architecture. Keywords: Biomimicry, Interior architecture, Sustainability, Sustainable Design, Interior Components