Provenance Transparency and Content Fidelity of Design-Source Claims in Biomimetic Architecture: A Claim-Level Audit of Eight Recurrent Cases

Scholarly accounts repeatedly attribute biological models and related design sources to recurrent examples of biomimetic architecture, yet the evidential consistency of these attributions with project-linked documentation remains unclear. This study applied a claim-level provenance audit to eight recurrent cases comprising 40 case-source nodes and 39 codable atomic claims. Claim-specific tracing identified 23 scholarly claims: 5 with project-linked support and 18 supported through secondary or intermediary routes. Independent classification of the joint evidence relations showed 91.3% exact agreement (Krippendorff’s α = 0.895, 95% bootstrap CI [0.702, 1.000]). Provenance transparency and content fidelity were analyzed separately. In the main audit, 20 of 23 claims were content-compatible with project evidence and 3 were conflict/substitution cases; no unsupported expansions were identified. A public-only sensitivity isolated the non-public Gherkin evidence route, while a stricter decision-boundary sensitivity reclassified 2 One Ocean Pavilion claims as unsupported expansions. The findings demonstrate the analytical value of treating provenance transparency and content fidelity as distinct methodological requirements for biomimetic case reporting and provide a claim-level audit procedure for distinguishing project-reported design sources, biological evidence, and scholarly interpretation.