Let’s consider 2016 as a critical year for humanity. The idea that we face a number of global challenges threatening the very basis of our civilization at the beginning of the 21st century is well accepted in the scientific community, and is studied at a number of leading universities. However, there is still no coordinated approach to address this group of challenges and turn them into opportunities. Our civilization has never faced such existential risks as those associated with global warming, biodiversity erosion and resource depletion. On the other hand we never had such an opportunity to advance prosperity and…

Over 50 years have passed since the Nobel Prize physicist Richard P. Feynman, with the lecture at the California Institute of Technology entitled ‘There’s plenty of room at the bottom’ has opened the way for innovations related to nanotechnology, prefiguring the possibilities associated with the transformation of matter at the molecular level.

Confronted with mounting social, economic, and ecological crises, growing numbers of people have begun to realize that traditional strategies and reformist approaches no longer work. Addressing the problems of the twenty-first century requires going beyond business as usual. It requires ‘changing the system.’ But what does this mean?’

Overwhelming evidence demonstrates that most of the terrestrial biosphere, including its biodiversity and ecosystem processes, has now been permanently reshaped by direct interactions between humans and ecosystems. While climate and other geophysical and biotic factors continue to constrain the form and functioning of the terrestrial biosphere, human populations and their use of land increasingly determine the realized form and dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems, including the cycling of the elements, biodiversity, primary productivity, and the presence of trees and their successional state.

The developments and innovations produced by passion, and aided by technology, have stretched the imagination. From the realization of many concepts formerly considered science fiction, to the creation of new forms of art, we already stand in awe of what passion and innovation can achieve. Information and communication technologies — of all kinds — double their power measured in terms of price performance, capacity and bandwidth almost every year. As a result, we are witnessing accelerating trends of exponential growth in the Bio-Info-Nano-Cognitive (BINC) revolution unfolding all around us.

Long before human beings began tinkering in labs, organisms had developed carbon capture and sequestration systems, water harvesting techniques, water transport systems, adhesives, colorfast materials, electronic circuits, distributed energy conversion systems, color displays, light absorbers, insulation, thermal dissipators, and information storage, along with countless other designs. All of these are blueprints for technologies that are not only useful to society but are also integral to the global economy. Nature has the potential to amaze us, stimulate us, propel us forward to want to learn more and understand more fully our world. Nature adds a kind of wonder value to our…

Life is supported by dynamic non-equilibrium as an operating condition. Managing dynamic non-equilibrium to provide the continuous change and control for our human needs will take creativity, insight and co-operation. How ecological and natures principles have influenced the evolution of behavioral and physiological traits of living organisms can inform and inspire fields such as urban design and architecture. By looking at nature’s ecosystem, we find independent, self-enriching, sustainability.

Over the past half century, we have become adept at dealing with environmental problems on a local and global scale.

Can we rise to the challenge to make our cities life-enhancing communities of discovery, creativity and innovation that are safe and healthy for humans and ecology? Has anthropocentrism in design encouraged a myopic and self-centered conception of our urban design and architecture? Urban spaces are inextricably linked to the environment of our planet and there is a compelling case for building new cities and retrofitting or expanding existing ones in ways that work in harmony with nature, by linking ecological and human systems. The city can become an ecosystem that embeds nature and people as equal partners to help rebalance…