We are getting more and more excited as we prepare for our upcoming Deep Roots Workshop April 21. As we dig deeper into how biomimicry can apply to the built environment not only as it applies to a building or project site, but also to a regional discussion of what all sustainability and resiliency efforts are working towards, we are adding shape to our Deep Roots vision. I wrote about this recently on my Think Biomimicry blog post about shifting a built environment designed to sit upon a landscape into one that lives within it, and included my current reading list as I prepare for our workshop.
We are inspired and awed by the incredible work taking place within the Chicagoland region such as the Calumet Stormwater Collaborative, the Center for Neighborhood Technology Rain Ready program, the innovative work of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District including their Restore the Canopy, Plant a Tree program, the Urban Wildlife Institute which studies the interaction between urban development and the natural ecosystem, and of course the Chicago Metropolitan Planning Council's work to envision a future for our region.
Together, these efforts and countless others move our region in a direction towards restoring greater resilience and sustainability. The question is, how will we know if we have done enough or how far we have to go? How do we know if we achieve "sustainability" or sufficient redundancy and diversity in our systems to be able to provide the services needed to live here for centuries to come?
I hope you find the articles inspiring and get you thinking about our built environment in a whole new way. Bring that thinking to our workshop! We're excited to share our thoughts and hope to learn from and work with you to figure out how to make it a reality.
