Transcription
Minister Minister San Francis Reinh text designing with nature. Look closely at nature's patterns and forms. Study and analyze their purposes and functions. Question how nature adapts and adjusts itself through different conditions and challenges. That's how experts use nature as a mentor, model, and measure to develop better ways to solve human problems in a sustainable manner.
Nature has been refining design solutions for 3.8 billion years. So it is beyond a doubt that nature is our oldest teacher. The term for the process of learning from nature and mimicking it to innovate human design is biomimicry. So how does biomimicry work exactly? Here's an example. Emperor penguins release small bubbles from their feathers to reduce water resistance and make them move more efficiently. To reduce fuel consumption, costs and pollution, experts copied this swimming phenomenon and applied it to cargo ships, therefore making them more energy efficient. And there are so many other examples where nature has the answer.
To elaborate more on the topic of biomimicry, we asked Jamie Miller, PhD in environmental engineering, president and founder of Biomimicry Frontiers in G Canada, and global director of regenerative design and biomimicry for the SJ Group, how he sees biomimicry. "To me, biomimicry is a lens that we can use to see nature as a design solution, but technically it's defined as innovation that is inspired by nature. It is somewhat the intention to look at nature as a system of designs that we could learn from and to take those design ideas and translate them into the built environment." With that biomimicry lens, scientists and experts like biologists, architects, and engineers find innovative ways to either reduce carbon footprints, avoid water shortages, develop new technology, or make transportation more efficient. It all begins with scientists asking themselves childlike questions about nature, like, "Why does a cat jump so high?" or "How can an ant carry so much load on its back?" These questions lead them to explore nature in different ways. Jaime explains this further.
"Most scientists draw inspiration from nature in one of those two ways. Either from biology to design, just being naturally inspired by something in nature, or taking a design to the natural world and finding solutions. Biology to design, that's where you look to the natural world to be inspired. So maybe you're looking at a mosquito and and you're just curious about its nose and the way that it can poke things. And biology to design is when you take that inspiration, that thing in nature that you're inspired by and you abstract it to see where else could we serve that function and you could start to think about needles or anything that you need to perforate or to to poke through. A lot of designs are inspired that way. The other way is often where you take your question to the natural world. If you want your product to do a specific function, the most important part of doing this process is understanding what do you want your design to do. You know, what do you want that clothing material to do? Do you want it to be water repellent? Do you want it to breathe or sweat or expand or shed? Then you can see that you can translate that to the natural world. You can start to say, well, where does nature sweat? Where does nature expand and shed? Then you can go to nature and start to look at hundreds, if not thousands of examples to take inspiration from."
To show how experts take design questions to the natural world, Jaime gave the example of when he and his team had to build a self-cooling building in India. The first thing they did was ask themselves what large structure could self-cool in the natural world of India. They thought of the elephant. "We thought, of course, the ears seem to be a way of doing things, but then we noticed how much it uses its nose to blow water over itself. And then we just started asking those questions like, how does that keep it cool when it's walking in the sun? It might evaporate really quickly. And then we're like, oh well, the elephant skin has this incredible wrinkling pattern. We started to dive into the research. The wrinkles actually capture the moisture and hold it for a longer period of time. So when it does go in the hot sun, it evaporates a little bit slower. So we copied the wrinkling technology and we built this rock wall facade that captured the rain water. The rocks all had these little crevices. So as the sun went over, it pulled the hot air at a slower rate to cool the building."
Indeed, by mimicking nature, companies can create regenerative designs that are more efficient, self-sustaining, and resilient. What do we mean by regenerative designs? They are designs that function like natural ecosystems, generating their own energy, cleaning water, and improving local biodiversity. An example of regenerative design is the termite mound-inspired buildings like the Eastgate Center in Zimbabwe. Experts mimicked the air circulation principle of termite mounds to build a self-cooling building that is more energy-efficient. Experts also mimicked the strength and resilience of termite mounds to create buildings that could withstand natural disasters like earthquakes. Termites build their mounds with available resources, which inspired experts to do the same. By using local sources and sustainable construction materials, they reduce the environmental impact linked to transportation and manufacturing. This shows how biomimicry has potential to solve a lot of our problems. So why aren't we applying this concept more often? Jamie Miller has the answer.
"We design with the assumption that humans are separate from nature. You can see that in the way we build our houses, our cities. We really separate ourselves from the natural world. So why biomimicry is so important now is because we need to change the assumptions and the lenses from which we design our everything, our infrastructure, our cities, our products."
Changing the assumptions and lenses to design something better is the way to go. But many companies are hesitant to make those changes. Funding from governments or investors may be available. However, the research and development phases of biomimicry can be time-consuming and expensive. Despite these obstacles, creating biomimetic designs often leads to long-term economic benefits. In fact, it's costly not to do biomimicry. And Jamie explains why. "The way we've developed and built our cities is very expensive to maintain. We built our cities on this assumption that we're separate from nature. We can control nature. But nature wants to come in. If we left the city, what would naturally happen? Nature would take over. The grass would start to grow. The trees would start to grow. So that means we're spending energy and time and money fighting that nature finds balance no matter what. That's the one thing we can't fight. And so to not let nature in, to not bring in nature in both like physically and metaphorically, it's going to continue to cost us and it's going to be expensive."
The concept of letting nature in has been known for a long time. It is surprising to know that biomimicry is seen as a new trend when in fact indigenous peoples have been applying biomimicry for a very long time and in many different ways from transportation to housing solutions. Our expert Jamie Miller explains this further.
"Indigenous people had a deep connection to their natural environment that perhaps I didn't have or my culture didn't have or hasn't had for a while. The way that they took inspiration was in many forms whether it's through dance rather through song but practically in design. For example, igloos were emulation of polar bear dens. So the indigenous people just had a deeper relationship with the natural world. Indigenous people believe that they are part of nature or that nature does not exist just for human consumption. If we are learning from indigenous people, we always reference and honor the indigenous person. And we use that even in biomimicry. When we come up with an idea, we honor the organism."
It's important to honor the origins of ideas and acknowledge property rights. It helps prevent exploitation and appropriation of indigenous knowledge and ideas in biomimicry. How can we honor nature? One way is to change our mindset from "What can we take from nature?" to "What can we learn from nature?" Experts should acknowledge nature as an active partner in design, not just as a resource. We can also honor nature through actions like reducing waste, learning about local ecosystems, seeing nature as a gift, and protecting it through conservation efforts so we can keep learning from it. "I think biomimicry continues to teach us how to do things more efficiently. I've yet to find anything that biomimicry can't solve because when you think about some of the challenges we face, you know, there's probably a metaphor in nature that could teach us something."
So, what does the future look like for biomimicry? Our expert Jamie Miller hopes to see biomimicry as a globally adopted design lens that will change the way we think, behave, and create. By changing our design lens and seeing nature as more than just a resource, we may realize that nature knows best and can help us solve many of our problems. As Leonardo da Vinci once said, "Learn from nature. That is where our future lies." As we discover more and more what nature knows and how it does things, we will know how it feels to be a part of the natural genius that surrounds us, not apart from it.