“What if I told you I work in a building that acts like a tree?”
With that simple line, a new video introduces the concept of biomimicry, to grow the movement of people working to apply nature’s lessons to the things we design and build.
But what is biomimicry and how can it help make the things we design and build better?
First, here’s the video:
What is biomimicry?
Biomimicry is about applying lessons that Mother Nature has been beta testing for billions of years. It’s an innovation method that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies.
And it is an interdisciplinary approach that brings together often-disconnected worlds: nature and technology, biology and built environment innovation, life and design. At its most practical, biomimicry is a way of seeking sustainable solutions by borrowing life’s blueprints, chemical recipes, and ecosystem strategies.
At its most transformative, biomimicry connects us in ways that fit, align, and integrate the human species into the natural processes of Earth. Biomimicry can be applied to create new products, processes, and policies–new ways of living–that are inherently sustainable, reduce materials and waste, and increase revenue and brand loyalty.
To share a bit of perspective about why it matters, Denis Hayes wrote about biomimicry recently in Ensia.
How can I learn more about biomimicry and apply it to things I build?
Biomimicry 3.8 is the global leader in biomimicry innovation consulting and professional training. Their mission is to train, equip, and connect engineers, educators, architects, designers, business leaders, and other innovators to sustainably emulate nature’s 3.8 billion years of brilliant designs and strategies.
Biomimicry Institute is a nonprofit organization with a goal for biomimicry to become a natural part of the design process. They accomplish this by tackling one massive sustainability problem at a time through our Design Challenges platform, mobilizing tens of thousands of practitioners with the support of the Global Biomimicry Network to solve the challenge, and then providing those practitioners with AskNature as a tool to begin the solution process.
AskNature is the world’s most comprehensive catalog of nature’s solutions to human design challenges. This curated online library features free information on more than 1,800 (and growing!) natural phenomena and hundreds of bio-inspired applications.
HOK, the global design, architecture, engineering and planning firm, formed an alliance with Biomimicry 3.8 in 2008 to integrate nature’s innovations into the planning and design of buildings, communities and cities worldwide. Design tools developed with Biomimicry 3.8 include Genius of Biome, a 180-page report describing the strategies and designs adopted by living organisms found in the temperate broadleaf forest biome.
Biomimicry Puget Sound manages Facebook and LinkedIn groups to share news and events for people in and around Seattle.
About the Video
“Biomimicry is Hot” was produced by TRIFILM, in partnership with the Bullitt Center. Aaron Straight, creative director, led the effort for Trifilm.
For more information about the video team, click here.