USE OF BIOMIMICRY DESIGN APPROACH IN CONSTRUCTING SUSTAINABLE RESILIENT STRUCTURES (CASE STUDY: PORT OF BEIRUT)

Resiliency is not the same as sustainability, nor its substitute, but definitely the two concepts complement each other’s. Sustainability is the avoidance of depletion of natural resources to maintain ecological balance whereas resiliency is to recover, adapt and keep going in the face of setbacks. While designing with green approach is important but what will happen to leed points if the building becomes uninhabitable due to disasters, that’s where resiliency comes into play. The 2019 statistics showed that natural disasters accounted for 133 billion dollars losses and manmade ones accounted for other 7 billion in addition to 11,755 people worldwide were passed way or disappeared, all as results of failures experienced in cities structures and infrastructures when facing such contingencies, these numbers draw a concern on the current buildings industry resiliency on the global level. Currently there are two theories of resiliency; engineering which is based on technology and ecological which is based on biology. While technology exploits energy to solve problems, biology focuses on information and structure which is usually ignored by technology, therefore this research aims to propose a new approach for designing resilient structures through the use of biomimicry in order for cities to be capable of withstanding disasters. To achieve this aim, the research used a scientific approach based on tracing literature review about building’s structures, in addition to disasters and how they shaped the architecture of our cities, and investigating ideas about resiliency achievement, then analyzing the “Port Of Beirut” as a case study to identify a new design approach through the use of biomimicry to improve the quality of life and strengthen the feeling of safety in the city. As a conclusion, after 3.8 billion years of nature’s research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to our survival, hence biomimicry approach to be applied in order to learn from nature as a model to create sustainable designs for achieving more resilient cities