Amphibious Architecture: A Biomimetic Design Approach to Flood Resilience

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Review of the article entitled “AMPHIBIOUS ARCHICTURE: A Biomimetic Design Approach to Flood Resilience”. With a particular focus on buoyancy, the authors use design principles from nature, to attempt to understand how plants passively respond and adapt to their changing environments. Using examples such as  the Venus Flower basket, giant kelp, and red mangrove, among others, the authors try to integrate these functions to the design of amphibious buildings.This article was a joy to read I believe extremely well suited to the readership of MDPI Sustainability journal. The manuscript addresses a very important topic which is also suitable, I find the submission is well-structured. However, it suffers from a number of minor errors which should be addressed. These include.

Photograph of Amphibious House on the River Thames not labelled and numbered.

Line 247 (Author’s own drawin.g) drawing. Please check all captions.

Photograph of Amphibious House in Thailand not labelled and numbered.

Photograph of Amphibious LIFT house not labelled and numbered.

Line 315 [46.] Remove the . from the inside bracket.

Line 368 change “seaweeds” to Seaweed, or macroalgae, same for 369.

Line 408 removed ’

Overall, I believe the manuscript would benefit from a short “optional” discussion about the constraints and entry points for upscaling such amphibious architecture designs. What are the key design, implementation, and construction challenges, in particular with a focus on the Global South where current and future flood-related climate change impacts will be felt most? This is optional. Overall, I value the manuscript as suitable for publication.

 

 

 

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for their comments. Based on the comments provided, the following changes have been made in response:

• The authors have reformatted figures and labels throughout the manuscript.
• “Author’s own drawing” has been removed from all titles illustrated by the author, and figures from other sources have been credited to their source.
• Section 6 has been included for discussion of the potential applications. The section discusses some design aspects distilled from section 5 and how they are linked to potential applications in flood situations. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

In line with the proofreading criteria of the publisher, I prepared a review  report, which would be as follows:

According my evaluation, the content of the proposed article mostly meets the objectives set out in the authors guide of the journal.

In addition to acknowledging the high-quality research work, I propose the following minor corrections:

1. I recommend changing the title of section 4: “Application of the Models from Nature”

2. I propose changing the title of Section 5 to “Results and Discussion: Design Guideline Proposals for an Amphibious Foundation”.

3. In case of Section 5. I suggest an introductory sentence in which the authors provide the content aspects for this section.

4. I recommend briefly referring to the content of Table 1 in section 5.1., explain its content and the relevant interrelationships.

5. The numbering of the subheadings of Section 5 must be reviewed again.

6. The authors can also consider changing the type of publication from “Article” to “Review”, because the publication examines and discuss the applicability of existing models with existing research methods rather than presenting new scientific results.

The references used in the review are relevant and assist the reader to understand the authors objectives. Illustrations make an excellent contribution to better transparency of researchers' results.

 Based on the above, after minor revision, I suggest publishing the reviewed paper.

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for their comments. Based on the comments provided, the following changes have been made in response:

• The authors have made changes to the titles of sections 4 and 5: (Section 4) Models from nature for potential applications and the subheadings of section 5 have been reviewed and revised. 

• Section 5 has been revised and restructured as a comparative analysis and synthesis of the models, including an introductory section to explain the content of the section.

• The paper includes a review of building solutions to identify challenges and opportunities as a motivation for this study. The main novel contribution of the manuscript lies in its biomimetic approach and the comparative analysis & synthesis of models to distil key design guidelines for amphibious buildings. Therefore, the authors classify the manuscript as an article and not a review. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

A very solid study. The authors' research has good implications for the intersection of bionics, landscape ecology and architecture. Considering the paper from a publication perspective, the authors need to improve the following.

First the type of manuscript should be changed to a literature review. This manuscript is more inclined to be a literature review than a research paper.

Secondly the formatting of the manuscript: the formatting of the images (Figures 1, 2, and 3), the formatting of the tables (Table 1), and the headings at all levels need to be improved. Each image must be labeled and the labeling should correspond to the image. Each picture in Figures 1, 2 and 3 should not be spaced too far apart. Each picture in Figures 7 and 8 should be labeled with a serial number, as the title of the figure states. Also each image does not usually need to be labeled if it was drawn by the author. If it is a citation of an image from another source it needs to be labeled and the copyright permission affirmed to the journal.

Finally, as in the first question. It is not enough for a manuscript to make an analysis as a literature review without a corresponding conclusion. I would like the authors to add a subsection analyzing how the above in bionics can be well applied in flood control buildings? Or what would your suggestion look like? The research of this manuscript should be meaningful, and this section will be able to show the significance of the research of the manuscript.

 

The groundwork of the manuscript is relatively solid, and the authors need to add further research significance and research value, which will be of great help to their peers, and the manuscript will be able to arouse the interest of scholars from different disciplines after it is published.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required.

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for their comments. Based on the comments provided, the following changes have been made in response:

• The figures have been revised to remove blank spaces and numbered accordingly.
• The authors thank the reviewers for this suggestion. The paper includes a review of building solutions to identify challenges and opportunities as a motivation for this study. The main novel contribution of the manuscript lies in its biomimetic approach and the comparative analysis & synthesis of models to distil key design guidelines for amphibious buildings. Therefore, the authors classify the manuscript as an article and not a review. 

• Section 5 has been revised and restructured as a comparative analysis and synthesis of the models, including an introductory section to explain the content of the section.

• The newly added Section 6 now discusses the potential application to buildings and provides some suggestions. 

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has made good improvements and the manuscript is acceptable from a content standpoint. In addition, the formatting of the manuscript needs further correction in view of publication.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The author has made good improvements and the manuscript is acceptable from a content standpoint. In addition, the formatting of the manuscript needs further correction in view of publication.