Identification and description of bio-innovations in architecture using the dedicated CLM Tool

What is innovative activity in architecture? This question lies at the core of identifying a research problem situated at the intersection of the multithreaded decision-making and creative processes undertaken by various entities focused on the commercialization of knowledge. The conducted review confirms a lack of a systemic solution for identifying and validating innovations related to this knowledge. This observation allows the authors to hypothesize that it is possible to construct a potentially objective, universal, and intuitive diagnostic system, adapted to the specific of interdisciplinary design innovations. The article provides a revision of the theoretical framework and methods for measuring innovation, based on an original research model called the Centrifuge Logic Machine (CLM). The aim of the paper is to identify and describe various aspects of innovation in the form of a synthetic diagnosis. As the first in a series of articles, it presents the general rationale for applying this novel apparatus and the results of testing it across three scales: architectural, urban planning, and industrial design. These represent three examples of bio-innovation characterized by a level of complexity adequate for an effective CLM test. The study demonstrated the ability to compare innovations from various perspectives: social, cultural, technological and creative, above all, using a single apparatus. This allowed for a unified image of innovative thought, despite the radically different projects tested. The diagnosis of individual innovation aspects was performed by determining their specific paths using the CLM. The multiplicity of these paths created the map of innovation, characteristic of a given object, resulting in a unique pattern of “fingerprints”. Their diversity and complexity demonstrate that innovations in design create networks of complex trajectories, the discovery of which is a form of decoding thought.