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The Patterns: Natural Architecture Patterns. Deriving patterns from nature.
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Natural Architecture Patterns
Building Architecture
Biomemetics is the study of biological structure and function. This approach is gaining ground in material science. From early civilisation, people derived design patterns from nature. Igloos and teepees are shaped from patterns of dwelling places in nature.  
Architecture Intensive Disciplines
Natural architecture provides patterns for design which draw on our natural surrounds. It also involves creating new patterns that are in harmony with nature. It is important for architects to consider their environment. Use cases drawn in the context of boundaries can give context to the human and system interaction. We need to understand the context of systems within an enterprise, industry, markets, communities, geographical locations and our planet as a whole. Many of our problems are based on design - social structures, systems and processes. By drawing on natural patterns we can seek to enhance the quality of life in our designs - try and prevent polluting the environment and burdening society with more stress and frustration.  
Case Study A: Large Corporate IT
We did not explicitly look at natural patterns as a frame of reference. However, use case with environment boundaries formed the "business model" for our construction plans. As part of an iteration we would model the soil on which we were establishing a construction site by creating a the boundaries for roles and use cases - similar to the case study pages in this paper - Case Study A.  
Case Study B: Small Commercial Team
New modules were named and designed according to natural metaphors. For instance, "data_seed" was a generic XML data interchange engine using the metaphor of a "seed" where the databases were represented as "soil", recordsets as "trees", records as "branchs", fields as "leaves", meta data as "roots".  
 
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