Urban Adaptation Through Evolutionary Development

MSSM Associate Mohammed Makki has presented his research this years 'Euro Evo Devo symposium' that was held at the National History Museum in London, UK. Mohammed was the only architect presenting at the symposium that was predominantly focused on the analysis of evolutionary developmental mechanisms and their influence on variation of form and morphology in nature.

Excerpt from Submission:

"In the context of the rapid growth of urbanized populations as well as the effects of climate change and diminishing natural resources, the methodology by which cities are designed in the next 30 years is crucial to the success or failure of sustaining the growing numbers in the population. This has triggered a reassessment of traditional urban design methods in order to establish a more sustainable modus operandi for urban development. In recent years, this has propagated an in-depth analysis of understanding a city within a biological context in which a city is developed as an organism rather than a machine. Through the application of a computational biological evolutionary model, a more substantial and applicable methodology for cities is developed through adaptation rather than optimization, reflecting traits – already acquired by natural systems – of energy efficiency, environmental response, regeneration and climatic and cultural adaptation. However, traditional models in evolutionary computation have been stagnant on Darwinian principles synthesized in the mid-20th century and are yet to substantially incorporate the advancements in evolutionary development of gene expression, gene regulation and regulatory frequencies. The work presented will examine the advantages of utilising Evo-Devo principles to generate novel urban tissues that respond to critical environmental conditions of multiple geographic and climatic regions."