Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Biomimicry - creative inspiration for designers

If we, a designers, truly inspect and respect what nature has to teach us, then the creative inspiration around us is limitless. Business Week's Green Design blog has recently published an enormous amount of new information, largely through pictures, to its site. No doubt that the contents are getting increased attention due to the U.N. General Assembly discussions this week around climate change.

The most fasincating posts to me are those relating to biomimicry, a new discipline that studies intently studies nature and then mimics nature's designs and processes to solve human problems. How much time do we spend trying to reinvent the wheel, and then in the process chase our own tails? We need look no further than out our own windows to be inspired by new and innovative thinking.

Finally, these sets of articles and the principles of biomimicry have provided me with the vocabularly to articulate why the environment is such a precious resource and why I am so passionate about its protection. To lose any part of it, be in flora or fauna, is to lose hundreds of thousands of years of design study. The wisdom encapsulated in a snail shell or the leaf pattern of a maple is irreplaceable. To lose that wisdom, in my eyes, is an awful as book burning or the banishing of the freedom of expression. As Mayor Bloomberg intimated this week, to not protect the environment is tantamount to terrorism.

Have a look at the Green Design site at http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/di_special/20080211sustainable.htm

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