From creating breathable metals to copying how animals cool their homes, architects and designers are increasingly using the principles of biomimicry in their work. Christopher DeWolf takes a look at how the discipline is evolving.
Research and publish the best content.
Get Started for FREE
Sign up with Facebook Sign up with X
I don't have a Facebook or a X account
Already have an account: Login
Biomimicry
213.2K views |
+0 today
 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
Scoop.it!
Crowdsourced innovation service Innonatives has posted a challenge seeking “radical ideas” on how to combine biomimetics and 3D printing for sustainability. Innonatives is a platform where any company may post a significant challenge and seek the public’s assistance in solving the issue. In this case, the partnership of Biomimetics Hessen and the Association of German Industrial Designers (VDID) are posting a major challenge. They invite the community to: «Present Their most brilliant and radical ideas on how Both techniques (Biomimetics and 3D Printing) can be used in combination to generate radical improvements towards environmental, social and economic sustainability».
It’s not clear when the challenge closes, but the ten best ideas as determined by an “expert jury” will be presented in a special event on 15 October in Germany." 
Scoop.it!
"Trees naturally filter and clean our air, but in today’s heavily polluted world, it’s just too huge of a task to expect Mother Nature to take care of herself. Taking this into account, designers Mario Caceres and Cristian Canonico have designed a set of beautiful air-filtering trees for the SHIFTboston urban intervention contest. Called TREEPODS, the designs harnesses biomimicry to efficiently emulate the carbon filtration qualities of trees."
Scoop.it!
"Inspired by diatoms and radiolarians, a new bottle used biomimicry as a basis for its new design. [...] Carlos Rego, a designer with Logoplaste Innovation Lab in Portugal, has found functional patterns in nature that have added beauty to his designs for something as utilitarian as a bottle. Those same patterns added strength while decreasing weight — and therefore material — from those bottles. And recently, the organisms that inspired the company’s latest design may also benefit from it. This story is about learning from nature how to minimize materials while still providing needed strength, how to cooperate, and how to design to make products that are not just less harmful to life, but are also restorative."
Vinicius Ferraz's curator insight,
May 12, 2015 10:40 AM
pessoas se interessam pela relação natureza/inovação
Scoop.it!
"The philosopher Eric Hoffer once said, “Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.” This outlook parallels historic attitudes toward the relationship of the made versus the born. The contrasting view—that nature is the source of creativity—is now gaining strength. Biomimicry, which advocates nature as a design mentor rather than a source for raw materials, has influenced many fields and taken form in strategies ranging from metaphorical to manipulative."
Scoop.it!
Doing biomimicry using specific plants, animals, or other organisms as mentors is a roughly five-step process: 1. Define the problem and its context well. 2. Translate it into a biological metaphor. 3. Find many different organisms in different contexts that are similar to your problem. 4.Translate these strategies into buildable things. 5.Choose the best buildable idea.
|
Scoop.it!
The Biomimicry Institute has announced the finalists of the Global Design Challenge. Eight teams will now go on to prototype their solutions in an accelerator program that will award US$100,000 to the winner.
Scoop.it!
"Biological systems often have the ability to adapt to their environments. They harness external atmospheric stimuli, and as a result, triggers are activated which might result in kinematic shape or chemical changes to a given system or plant. Performance challenges – when pitted against a series of resource limitations like humidity or lack of water – can provoke complex and multi-layered structural changes in plants, and nature regularly makes use of various strategies and materials to deal with those challenges.[...] University of Stuttgart Professor Achim Menges, a registered architect and the founding director of the Institute for Computational Design, is also a visiting professor in architecture at Harvard University, and his practice and research are devoted to creating integral design processes at the nexus of “morphogenetic design computation, biomimetic engineering and computer aided manufacturing."
Scoop.it!
"Designers Joris Laarman, Mathias Bengtsson, Lilian Van Daal, and Nicolette de Waart put biomimicry to the test when they used a biomimetic approach to create concept chairs. Their innovative creations explore how human design can mimic nature to increase efficiency, elegance, and sustainability. Inspired by the form and function of nature, the design of each of these chairs explores at least one of the core methodologies — form, process, and system — of biomimetic design."
The Morpho Institute's curator insight,
September 18, 2014 6:23 PM
Great Biomimicry example. Let this inspire your next STEM learning opportunity!
Scoop.it!
"For her graduation project at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, industrial designer Lilian van Daal developed a concept 3D-printed soft chair called Biomimicry... [...] Van Daal looked for ways to create a soft chair from one type of material and retain the basic features required for the item to function as a chair. The chair needed to be firm and rigid in some areas and soft in other areas, and Van Daal experimented with various geometric structures to come up with a structure suitable for her design concept. The designer used nature as inspiration and studied the structure of plant cells – whose structural design allows them to perform different functions."
Scoop.it!
"Salone del Mobile, the annual Milanese furniture fair, is as for designers as it is for brands struggling to associate themselves with design in general--as evinced by the slew of events and unveilings that are only peripherally related to design. For example, today the French automaker Renault unveiled their much-hyped new concept car, the Twin’z, which was designed by the Welsh biomimicry guru Ross Lovegrove. “The aim was to break down the boundaries between the world of an object whose calling is to be in movement--the automobile--and that of furniture,” the carmaker explains in their release."
Scoop.it!
I have recently developed a slight obsession around barrel cactus. They have become my go to organism when introducing biomimicry, especially in workshop exercises that gets an audience engaged in Biomimicry.
|
