Biomimicry step-by-step

Abstract

The creativity found in nature is seemingly boundless. Designs and strategies that species have developed for survival emerged through aeons of evolution and have therefore been refined for high functionality within the given context. These survival strategies employed by single organisms and applied to whole ecosystems can be considered design ingenuity and are worth investigating as they represent an extensive pool of potential solutions to human problems. Many viable biologically inspired designs (BIDs) have already been emulated from nature and biomimicry offers one of the possible processes for mimicking nature’s ingenuity and distinguishes itself from other bioinspired forms of innovation in two ways: it has a firm sustainability mandate that is embedded directly in the design process and it is applied to all kinds of disciplines beyond the usual technology focus of BID. The four phases of the biomimicry thinking design process are described, step-by-step, in this perspective, from the position of teaching it to developers of products and services, processes, structures and systems that are designed for sustainable futures. The perspective ends with a list of challenges observed while teaching the process to designers, engineers and managers.