When Design Copies Nature — Part 2

• Design For Change
• Design Process

 { 🌿 } – Biomimicry: how humans used nature to solve design problems

This is a follow-up to the article which appeared in the previous issue of Phase Magazine, titled When Design Copies Nature — Part 1.

Where Is Biomimicry Applied Nowadays?

Nowadays, biomimicry is widely applied in architecture and industrial design. Scaly structures can be observed in every corner of the planet today, and products such as shoes that imitate the actual shape of the feet are gaining more popularity. So, in terms of application, biomimicry has definitely a fair share of them, and probably just as many that haven’t yet been thought of.

If the current trend towards creating products that are built after taking a good look at nature continues at the pace and intensity we see right now, then no doubt biomimicry will become as much a part of the overall design process as, say, typography is in graphic design, where you can’t have one without the other.

Albeit biomimicry is no longer in its infancy, it is still in the early stages of its contemporary application, therefore it will be very interesting what the future will bring and if it will continue to be as influential as it is nowadays.

Biomimetic Design: The New Normal?

If you’re an architect or an industrial, fashion or product designer, it will be virtually impossible to avoid taking biomimicry into your practice these days, and chances are that, at some point during the pre-development stage, you (or someone working alongside you) will be taking into consideration the possibility of improving the project at hand with some elements of biomimicry — if the particular task at hand allows it, of course.

So, is biomimetic design the new normal?

Well, not quite, due to the intrinsic limitations in its application. But, for projects where such a biomimetic component can be applied, then surely it will become more normalised to see it being included in the years to come.

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