What is Biomimicry?

In areas such as industrial design, architecture, engineering, and others, one can observe the continued use of analogies and the direct application of natural science in the search for ideas and innovative solutions. Biomimicry is a technology-driven approach to using natural design lessons that seek to solve people's problems. Biomimetic studies are based on natural design solutions, decoding of geometries and capabilities in search of better use and lower energy expenditure.

After much research, Janine Benyus has documented her findings in biomimicry - an innovation inspired by nature - through a large body of research. This new term - Biomimicry - is referred to as broader than the concept of bionics that was known up to then. In addition to thinking about mimicking a biological form, biomimicry also includes the concept of duplicating the behavior of biological organisms. Below is the Benyus definition of biomimicry:

• Nature as a Model:

Examine models of nature and imitate them or use them as inspiration to solve human problems;

• Nature as a Measure:

Using Ecological Standards to judge the appropriateness and validity of our innovations. Nature has learned, after billions of years of evolution, what works, what is appropriate and what is sustainable;

• Nature as a mentor:

A new way of observing and evaluating nature. Don't worry about what we can get out of the natural world, but what we can learn from it.

Benyus says that for a society accustomed to dominating or improving nature, imitating it respectfully is a radically new approach, a real revolution. Unlike the industrial revolution, the biomimicry revolution introduces a period not based on what can be exempted from nature but on what can be learned from it. If we do things the way nature does, it is possible to change the way we produce food, produce materials, generate energy, cure diseases, store information and run businesses. After 3.8 billion years of R&D, failures fossilize, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival.

Looking deep into nature, we are aware that all human inventions are present in it, albeit in more elegant forms, at a much lower cost to the planet. Even one of the most intelligent systems of construction - with columns and beams - is already represented in the internal structure of the lilies and the bamboo stalks. Central heating and air conditioning are provided with termite towers. The best sonar man has created can be hard to hear compared to multi-frequency stick transmissions. Even the wheel, which has always seemed to be a uniquely human creation, was found in a small rotary engine that drives the flagella of the oldest bacteria in the world.

Together, living organisms maintain dynamic stability, like arabesque dancers, constantly manipulating resources without wasting them. After decades of study, ecologists have begun to understand the many hidden similarities between interconnected systems. There are several principles to be learned from their records:

• Nature works in sunlight.

• Nature consumes only the energy it needs.

• Nature is fit for form to function.

• Nature recycles everything.

• Nature thrives on collaboration.

• Nature rests on diversity.

• Nature requires precise knowledge.

• Nature stops waste from the beginning.

• Nature touches the power of constraints.

According to biologist John Todd (2000), Earth's ecology has a set of instructions that we must urgently unravel and apply in the design of human systems. After forty years of research in biology, ecology, and design, Todd points out that it is possible to design with nature. With eco-design, there can be a more advanced civilization that uses only a tenth of all the planet's resources used by industrial society today.

Todd and his wife Nancy Jack-Todd (1993) were the first researchers to offer a list of eco-design principles. The original proposal had 9 commandments, which were later supplemented by point 10, to emphasize the centrality of design as an expression of intentionality in all human interactions:

• The living world is a matrix for all designs.

• Design should follow, not contradict the laws of life.

• Biological justice must determine design.

• The design should reflect the bioregion.

• Planning must be based on renewable energy sources.

• Design must be sustainable when integrating living systems.

• Design must be co-evolutionary with the natural world.

• Construction and design should help heal the planet.

• Design must follow sacred ecology.

We are all designers.