Mother Nature as the First Designer
May 10, 2021 | Categories: Articles
In 1997, Janine Benyus published a ground-breaking book, Innovation Inspired by Nature. She coined the term ‘Biomimicry’ to describe an approach to Design defined as “innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies.” Such an interdisciplinary approach looks to Nature’s evolutionary examples as models for inspiration and wisdom. Her theory proposes that the diversity and sustainability of the natural world offers a wide range of potential solutions for contemporary problems. She was not the first to do so.
One early example of a Biomimicry-style solution is Leonardo da Vinci’s 15th Century drawings for a ‘flying machine.’ He was a keen observer of both the anatomy of animals and the mechanics of flight. He applied those observations to many of his sketches. Although his pioneering machine was never successfully built and flown, its existence in his sketchbook reveals an inquisitive mind that utilizes observation and imitation of the natural world to interpret a creative solution. See the diagram above of the Dwarf epauletted fruit bat (Micropteropus pussilus) flying at night and Leonardo da Vinci’s Flying Machine.
Later examples of successful imitations that actually were built include the aircraft-design innovations developed by Hedy Lamarr —the actress and little-known inventor— for the war-time engineering efforts of Howard Hughes. Her designs were built for and sold to the American military during WWII. As is revealed in the documentary on her life, Bombshell, her concepts to reduce drag and optimize airspeed imitated fish bodies for the fuselage and bird wings for the aircraft wings. By studying and adapting the shapes of the fastest fish and the fastest birds, she advanced aerospace engineering substantially even though she was considered to be an untrained, amateur inventor.
Michael Pawlyn, an Architect who uses Biomimicry in his work, says in his popular 2010 TED Talk, “You could look at nature as being [like] a catalog of products, and all of those [products] have benefited from a 3.8-billion-year research and development period. And, given that level of investment, it makes sense to use it.”
Nature can be a wise teacher, if we allow ourselves to observe and incorporate her wisdom. The tendency for people to think that anything man-made is always superior to something nature-generated is as short-sighted as a tendency to think that anything ‘new’ is automatically better than something older. The natural world offers an abundance of examples of sustainability and efficiency. Any systemic, holistic approach to Creativity would need to include not only the full range of human experience, but also the extensive wisdom to be found in the natural world.
To explore further:
https://www.treehugger.com/amazing-examples-of-biomimicry-4869336