PurposeThis paper's main objective is to focus on the water-harvesting ability of plants and try to implement a solution-based method to outline a plant-inspired design framework.Design/methodology/approachThe current paper aims to provide a step-by-step approach to the biological-inspired design by looking deeply at plants' mechanisms and features to harvest water and conduct a method to learn them in an organized way.FindingsIn addition to the proposed framework, the fundamental water-harvesting principles of plants including increasing condensation, reducing transpiration and facilitating transportation have been extracted by investigating several adaptable plants. The relevant factors related to each of these three principles are introduced and can potentially ease the process of bio-inspiration as it contributes to the findability and understandability of a particular biologic strategy. As a result, this framework can be used to the formation of novel designs in different disciplines. In this process, the development of an architectural design concept is presented as an example.Originality/valueThe current global issue about the shortage of water leads researchers to learn adaptability from nature and increase the demands of using bio-inspired strategies. The novelty of this study is to introduce a water-harvesting design path, which has been presented using a four-step-plant-to-design process. Learning from plants' water-harvesting strategies will contribute to efficiency in different disciplines. The findings of this study have important implications for developing bio-inspired water-harvesting materials and systems. Moreover, the findings add substantially to the understanding of water-harvesting architecture and play an important role in bridging the gap between theory and practice.

Clever decision making in the selection of building materials is a topic that focuses on important aspects of the building industry.‏ The materials used in the facade of the building not only affect the appearance of the building and the city but also affect the environmental, social, economic, energy efficiency and other kinds of aspects. Considering the importance of this issue, in this research, the city of Tehran‏ was studied in terms of building materials and tried to solve the problems of Tehran by identifying and analyzing the current situation. Statistical analysis was performed using R software packages version 3.5.0 and Microsoft Excel. The most important result of the data is that travertine has been identified as the most commonly used material in Tehran since the past 10 years. In this research, after examining the various types of materials used in the facade of the buildings in Tehran, we seek to discover the relationship between the type of building materials and the building age. In addition, after examining sample buildings, several common types of combinations of materials have been presented in the facades of Tehran's buildings. Keywords: building materials, building facade, travertine