Biomimicry

Biomimicry proposes that for any design problem, nature can provide an answer. Last year, Pratt’s Center for Sustainable Design Studies, hosted a workshop for Pratt faculty on biomimicry. During one session, we tackled a given design challenge: the structure and material quality of an LED cover that needs to be flexible, yet impermeable to air/water so as not to degrade. After exploring turtles, armadillos, the scales of snakes, etc. we settled on the firefly with it’s glowing soft abdomen as the closest biological equivalent.

The steps we took looked like this: functionalize design problem > biologize the question; look to nature, organisms, ecosystems > research champion adapters > extract the functional strategies > abstract and fit the best mechanisms to your design constraints.

Recently I came across an article from Core77—a thorough and informative read on design for disassembly. And I recalled my notes from the workshop last Spring: Biomimicry can happen in 3 ways from shallow to deep: Form, Process, and Systems. With Form the object mimics natural shapes, biomorphic. The Process (described above) looks at the way the object functions and uses abstract concepts from nature to inspire function. The most deep, and challenging, is System. Here we look at how the object assembles/disassembles, ideally a closed loop cycle (end up with waste that is not waste, has second life or can disassemble in nature or in function), or can move into larger scale interactions, much like ecosystems do.

Read more about biomimicry here.