"Over a period of seventeed years Synectics research has observed that the richest source of Direct Analogy is biology. This is because the language of biology lacks a mystifying terminology and the organic aspect of biology brings out analogies which breathes life into problems that are stiff and rigidly quantitative."
Synectics: The Development of Creative Capacity - William JJ Gordon, 1961
What is Biomimicry?
"Bios" means life, "Mimicry" means imitate. Biomimicry is the practice of learning from, and then emulating life's genius to solve human problems and create more sustainable designs. Biomimicry is a branch of science, a problem-solving method, a sustainability ethos, a movement, a stance toward nature, and a new way of viewing and valuing biodiversity.Why Biomimicry? Why now?
Organisms and ecosystems face the same challenges that we humans do, but they meet those challenges sustainably. The premise of Biomimicry is that Life has been performing design experiments in Earth's R&D's lab for 3.8 billion years: what is flourishing on the planet today are the best ideas – those that perform well in context, while economizing on energy and materials, and without producing toxic byproducts. Organisms are the consummate physicists, chemists and engineers, and ecosystems are economies beyond compare. They can provide us with innovative and progressive solutions to the design, engineering and other challenges that we now face. In this competition the focus is on challenges in water storage, supply, infrastructure and treatment. The goal is to create products, processes, organizations and policies – new ways of living – that are well adapted to life on earth over the long haul.Guidelines: Life creates conditions conducive to life.
Biomimicry functions according to the four principles of Natural Capitalism:- Harness advanced resource efficiency to create profits by eliminating the need to pay for extraction at one end and pollution at the other
- Eliminate the concept of waste by redesigning industry along biological lines, closing loops in the flows of materials, and not producing persistent toxins - Biomimicry
- Change the business model to encourage these two shifts by rewarding the provider and the customer for doing more and better with less for longer – Flow of services
- Reverse planetary destruction by restoring natural capital. Any good capitalist reinvests in the capital that is in short supply
Biomimicry Design Methodology
Read more here: Biomimicry: A tool for innovation- Define what you want the design to do (FUNCTION)
- Research how does nature do that FUNCTION (across all relevant organisms and ecosystems), - go to www.asknature.org, then go outside!
- Abstract the designs, chemical recipes, ecosystem strategies and apply these to your (human) technologies (in context)
- Evaluate the design against life's principles (above)
- It's also important to distinguish between bio-utilisation, biotechnology and biomimicry. Biomimicry typically does not use organisms from nature, but borrows the recipes or designs and applies them to human systems. Biomimicry can use organisms in nature (e.g. constructed wetlands) but in this case, the ecosystem recipe is emulated, making it biomimicry. Where only a single organism is used or where farming/harvesting of organisms is used – that is called bio-utilisation and is not biomimicry. Biotechnology which involves genetic modification or similar changes in biological organisms to achieve a human function is not biomimicry as it is typically NOT what nature would do (e.g. combine genes from strawberries and salmon).
Water is the stuff of Life – Inspire me!
- Ausubel K, Harpignies JP (ed), 2004, Nature's operating instructions: the true biotechnologies, San Francisco, Sierra Club Books.
- Benyus JM, 2002, Biomimicry: innovation inspired by nature, New York, Harper Perennial
- Hawkins P, Lovins AB, Lovins LH, 1999, Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution. London: Earthscan Pub.
- Todd J, Brown EJG, Wells E, 2003, Ecological Design Applied, Ecological Engineering, 20, 421-440.