Biomimicry

"If you ride in a car or plane today, you may be the unknowing beneficiary of planet-helping biomimetic design. Designers and engineers can reduce the size or weight of many vehicle parts for greater efficiency or cost savings. This shape optimization is a major task in engineering. Making things lighter, stronger and faster long has been a goal in manufacturing, but engineers are increasingly employing biologically inspired algorithms to design many objects around you. The better integration of three methods has fostered this still-growing tide of bio-inspired design objects: biologically inspired algorithms for analysis and shape iteration, computer aided design and additive manufacturing."

"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."

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.

The Eiffel Tower weighs less than the air around it. It achieves this by exploiting the same structural ideas that make your bones so strong yet so light.