Biomimicry - An approach in Design

It is the imitation of the model, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems.

PURPOSE: Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature's time tested patterns & strategies. The goal is to create products, processes, and policies – new ways of living – that are well-adapted to life on earth over the long haul.

BIOMIMETIC: refers to human-made processes, substances, devices or systems that imitate nature.

Biomimicry was popularized by scientist and author Janine Benyus in her 1997 book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.

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Janine Benyus, co-founder of Biomimicry Institute simply asks creators to question "how would nature solve this", before creating or developing anything. She defines it as a new discipline that learns from the genius of nature. In terms of architecture and interior design, studies have been done and better solutions have been developed by observing ant hills, termites mount, birds nest to name a few.

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Biomimicry in Architecture

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Building that breathes : DORIS SUNG’S LIVING ARCHITECTURE

Growing up Dori Sung thought of architecture as being extremely static. “Buildings did not conform to human body or human nature.” So she questioned when she went to architecture school.

“Why can’t architecture accommodate the human?”

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One way was to make architecture RESPOND. Looking at a building and considering it more like a SKIN.
So she developed the technology of THERMO-BIMETALS that responds to heat. It enables to heat and cool a building.

Idea Initiation : She found metal on a lamp that would open up as the bulb would turn on and give heat. This became the “surface material for architecture”, as a way to automatically control the amount of air passing for ventilation or potentially for shading purposes. The ability of the metal to curl when heated allows the building shin to respond for purposes of sun-shading, self-ventilation, shape-changing and structure-prestressing.

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She is working on developing smart thermo-bimetals and other shape memory alloys, unfamiliar materials to architecture, as a new material for the “third” skin. (First being the human flesh, second the clothing and third the architecture.) Opening and closing ventilation ducts depending on the time of day and the position of the sun. As she points out at the end of her talk, these systems require no human intervention — even in the case of a power outage, they continue to work "tirelessly, efficiently, and endlessly."

SOURCE : TED Talk by Dori Sung.

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This approach provides promising results with a little bit of perspective of nature. While this topic is too wide to be covered in a single post, I hope it provides a basic understanding of it. I'm sharing while learning as well. As a future designer, I felt I’ve certain responsibility towards environment and society, which further deepens my interest in the topic of sustainability.

Some questions that could be further explored now :

1. Can buildings be grown?
2. Can interior surfaces become tactile?
3. Can forms of building change on their own?
4. What all things can retain light so as to replace energy expenditure on lights?

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Do share your insights and thoughts on this :)