Environmental Harmony And The Architecture
Of ‘place’ In Yoruba Urbanism
Author(s)
T. Adejumo & M. Adebamowo
Abstract
Harmony in built environment is based on wholeness with nature through a
continuous flow of interactions between values and city form. Wholeness
accommodates biomimetic principles that link the natural world to the people in
a specific ‘place’. Biomimicry looks beyond imitating form and process in
ecosystem to include world view that solves built environment problems and
gives meaning to people in a particular ‘place’. The paper examines the
foundation of Yoruba cosmological world view in the determination of
biomimetic principles that generates environmental harmony through
architecture of ‘place’. The research is underpinned by the concepts of mimesis,
cosmometry and sense of place. It is phenomenological and adopted qualitative
methodology. Data gathered through scoped literature and two hour each
interview of seven Ifa educational system sages were analyzed using grounded
theory to understand mimetic philosophy of Yoruba urbanism. The study
revealed that design template reflected in Yoruba city form is a graphic
interpretation of \“Ifa” earth creation mythology. Yoruba cosmogram is a 16
sided polygon with dominant four cardinal points that occasionally surface as
square or it’s variant. The study equally identified ‘4’and ‘16’ as Yoruba design
numerology. Urban ‘places’ including King’s market, quarter spaces, residential
units and their court yards are rectangular in forms. Therefore design templates
that create \“Yoruba atmosphere” are the imitation of her cosmogram super
imposed on the landscape where geomantic planning enhances periodic access to
earth energy through animism religious belief system. The paper recommends
that biomimetic design and planning considerations from the bioregional
ecosystem must consciously explore forms and processes reflected by the
cosmogram and design numerology. Alignment of such biomimetic design form
Keywords
mimesis, biomimicry, cosmogram, design numerology, earth energy and harmony
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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