Energy Efficient Buildings in Smart Cities: Biomimicry Approach

Smart cities are those using technologies to make life easier for their citizens and enhancing the quality of life and urban service in order to reduce consumption, especially of energy. Biomimicry is one of the tools of the 21st century toachieve an emotional smart city that has its own spirit and identity. Biomimicryhas three main levels: organism, behaviour and ecosystem level, in terms of form generation, material selection,construction process, and function establishing.A subcategory of biomimicry is building skin which forms the entire exterior envelope of the building. It is the boundary through which buildings interact with the environment and the whole city. The aim of this paper isto discussbiomimicry as a tool to reduce energy consumption in cities through buildingskins. It also discusses concepts of smart cities. It provides an overviewof biomimicry as a tool of achieving a perfect biomimetic skin of buildings in smart cities. In addition it analysescase studies of energy conservationusing concepts of biomimicry. Finally it would conclude guidelines for biomimicry design of building skinsas a tool for reducing energy consumption in smart citie