From Flames to Foundations: Biomimicry’s role in designing fire-resilient cities

As the climate crisis escalates, wildfires have become an increasingly frequent and destructive threat, ravaging land, homes, and wildlife habitats worldwide. However, within this growing danger lies an opportunity to rethink how we build and design. My work as a transdisciplinary design scientist focuses on using nature-inspired strategies to create resilience in architecture and urban planning, especially in fire-prone regions. By observing how ecosystems adapt to wildfires, I’ve developed innovative approaches that help human habitats not only coexist with these natural disasters but potentially thrive.

Nature as a Blueprint for Resilience

At the heart of my work is the belief that nature, through billions of years of evolution, has perfected strategies for surviving wildfires. Certain plant species, known as pyrophytes, have evolved to not only withstand fires but also flourish in their wake. These plants possess traits that enable them to regenerate after a fire, showing us that resilience is not about avoiding disaster but about adapting and growing from it.

By studying these natural adaptations, I’ve sought to translate these principles into the built environment. We need to rethink wildfires, not as purely destructive forces, but as integral to the health of certain ecosystems. Just as these environments have evolved to live in harmony with fire, we can design our buildings and cities to do the same.

Panarchistic Architecture: A New Design Paradigm

One of my key contributions to this field is the development of “Panarchistic Architecture” and its sub-class of ‘Pyrophytic Architecture ’, a concept that draws inspiration from pyrophyte plants, which have evolved strategies to survive different fire regimes. This approach divides buildings into three categories, each tailored to specific wildfire conditions: Pyro-Evaders, Pyro-Endurers, and Pyro-Resistors.

• Pyro-Evaders are designed for areas where wildfires are rare but intense. These buildings, like certain plants, are constructed to endure high-intensity fires when they do occur. They use materials and structures that help to protect both the building and its inhabitants from the extreme heat and flames of these rare, catastrophic events. They also prepare for the worst, by safely storing data that’s imperative to rebuilding efforts, together with other information and artefacts that can help make recovery easier.

• Pyro-Endurers are suitable for regions where wildfires occur more frequently but with less intensity. Like plants that have adapted to survive frequent fires through thick bark or fire-resistant leaves, these structures are built to withstand repeated exposure to lower-intensity fires, using resilient materials to minimize damage and extend the building’s lifespan.

• Pyro-Resistors take the concept of endurance further, incorporating additional features that not only survive fire but actively resist damage. These buildings are designed to reduce maintenance and repair costs by integrating advanced fire-resistant materials and systems, making them both cost-effective and durable in the face of frequent, low-intensity fires.

The Role of Technology and Data

While nature provides design inspiration, technology enables us to turn concepts into reality. In my approach to Pyrophytic Architecture ™, advanced information technologies—such as sensors, data processing, and communication networks—are integrated into the design. These systems allow buildings to sense and respond to environmental changes in real-time, much like an ecosystem reacts to impending danger.

For instance, environmental biosensor concepts that I’m developing can track factors like heat, humidity, and plant moisture levels, which can signal warnings that wildfires are likely, as well as their presence in environments. These sensing technologies are integrated into a bio-inspired information technology communications (ICT) network, that upon wildfire’s detection triggers building and infrastructure defences, like closing fire-resistant shutters over windows and doors and seal ventilation systems, and other possible points through which embers may enter and ignite a building’s interior.

This mirrors how plants and animals in fire-prone ecosystems use chemical signals to coordinate their responses to fire, enabling rapid and effective adaptation.

As in nature, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to building resilience to wildfires. Instead, the types of bio-inspired solutions found at sites vary from one to another. Thus, both the building codes and applied design concepts that I have created exhibit a kind of diversity that mirrors what we find across different kinds of ecosystems. Put another way, ‘ecosystems of architectures’.

By incorporating such systems into our buildings and cities, we can create environments that are smarter and more resilient and help us to adapt to the changing environmental conditions caused by climate change.

While each ecosystem is unique, one of the key lessons from nature is that resilience is interconnected. My research emphasizes the importance of designing for wildfire resilience with specific environments in mind. Rather than a one-size-fits-all solution, we must tailor architectural designs to the distinct fire regimes and ecosystems of each location. Just as plants and animals evolve to suit their local environments, so too must our buildings adapt to the specific challenges they face.

Biomimicry Meets High-Tech Innovation

To make this vision a reality, I have developed a suite of bio-inspired technologies that mimic the traits of pyrophytes, creating resilient systems for both architecture and infrastructure. These systems combine biological mimicry with advanced data sensing, processing, and autonomous activation, leading to buildings that can respond dynamically to fire. Initially developed during my PhD research, I’ve been advancing these and other concepts in the several years since I published my thesis.

A couple examples of these seminal concepts are:

Retardant BIObark™, which takes inspiration from the fire-resistant bark found on certain fire-adapted plants. An exterior wall-plating system, it dissipates heat and insulates structures from low- to mid-intensity fires. Like the thick bark that shields trees, this fire-retardant material acts as a barrier, ensuring that heat doesn’t penetrate and ignite the building’s core. Its furrowed design mimics the natural bark’s grooves, which allow for heat dissipation while maintaining structural integrity.

Pyri-CONE™, which mimics the way that pinecones of fire-adapted pines disperse seeds in response to fire, is an autonomous wildfire-sensing and data storage device. When it detects heat or chemical signals from a nearby fire, through such processes as the resins that hold its exterior parts together, the device launches data-filled “seeds” into the environment, much like the pinecones that inspired it. These seeds contain things like architectural blueprints and emergency instructions, ensuring that this essential information is preserved even in the event of a devastating fire, and critically, is available for post-fire rebuilding and recovery.

Beyond Wildfires: A Broader Vision for Resilient Cities

Though wildfire resilience is a central focus of my work, the principles underlying Pyrophytic Architecture™ have broader implications. Climate change is driving an increase in the frequency and intensity of other natural disasters, such as floods, storms, and droughts. The bio-inspired design strategies I advocate for can help us develop urban environments that are more adaptable to a variety of challenges.

In 2010 I launched the first project to explore the question of ‘how would nature design a city?’, Bionic City® and in the interim between then and now have extensively researched possible answers through an array of approaches, including site visits to major natural disasters, field research, interviews with world-leading experts across an array of relevant disciplines, and experiments in natura (in the outdoors) and in vitro (in the lab). Most recently, I’ve undertaken research in one of California’s most hot and arid deserts, where I made observations that are informing another new nature-inspired class of architecture, Xerophytic Architecture™, which takes its lead from plants that have evolved to live with acute water shortages and extreme heat.

The Future of Fire-Resistant Architecture

As wildfires continue to threaten communities worldwide, nature-inspired designs offer a pathway toward greater resilience. By drawing on the wisdom of ecosystems that have coexisted with fire for millennia, my research findings suggest that we can build structures that are better equipped to survive and recover from the now fast-unfolding impacts of climate change.

The future of fire-resistant architecture lies in our ability to adapt. Just as nature evolves in response to environmental pressures, so too must our buildings and cities evolve. By integrating principles found in some of the world’s hardiest plants, among other organisms, we can create more sustainable, liveable, and adaptable communities.

While challenges such as funding and public awareness remain, the potential for bio-inspired architecture to revolutionise urban design is clear. My work in this field demonstrates that even in the face of increasing environmental threats, there is hope.

Nature has shown us the way forward—we just need to follow its lead.