Biomimetic Urban Design

This might be a stretch...but what if somebody tried to mimic our own natural habitat in urban or community design? I'm not talking about going all the way back to living in caves, but instead I'm thinking of the next step up.

I found this artist's rendering of what such an ancient community might look like. It's the Neolithic village of Jarlshof, on a remote island off the north coast of Scotland.

World Book Encyclopedia

 

Just from looking at this illustration, it appears that an ancient village would be made up of homes clustered around some central space or street. The whole complex would then be surrounded by a wall. I don't know if you could justify such a tower like this one in a modern-day reconstruction, but it would be a nice place to spend time. They probably used this tower for defense or to keep an eye on the livestock.

 

I feel that this village's design can be seen expressed in many of the small subdivisions recently built around central Starkville. The Crabtree property that was our first studio project of the semester definitely had some of the inward-focus of this village. So did that cluster of white houses on Whitfield Street.

 

This is what Jarlshof looks like now:

 

panoramio.com

It seems well-preserved, with only the roofs missing.