I went to a fascinating event last week on Biomimicry, which I theretofore hadn’t really heard anything about but now I’m absolutely fascinated with. Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies. The goal is to create products, processes, and policies—new ways of living—that are well-adapted to life on earth over the long haul.
Crazy talk? I know. Since humans are one of the newest species on the planet, perhaps we could learn from what these super species do. How? By changing the way we think about problems and asking nature how it solved similar problems.
Japan’s newly redesigned Shinkansen Bullet Train provides one prominent example of Biomimicry’s value. Because of air pressure changes when the bullet train emerges from tunnels along the route, it caused years of noise-polluting thunder claps which could be heard up to half a mile away. As engineers looked for solutions, they sought to mimic something in nature that travels quickly and smoothly between two different mediums: the kingfisher bird.
Modeling the front-end of the train after the beak of kingfishers, which dive from the air into bodies of water with minimal splash to catch fish, resulted in eliminating the thunder claps and using 15% less electricity. Plus the train goes 10% faster thanks to this new design. Nature nailed it.
Scientists and designers are using Biomimicry to address problems like these: avoiding head injury by mimicking the woodpecker, with a biological structure which has evolved to absorb enormous, repetitive brain impacts without injury; managing bacteria not by trying to kill it (which causes super strains to emerge) but by mimicking sharkskin which is adapted to deter attachments of microorganisms; and creating new ways to produce concrete which closely resembles the calcium carbonate producing process of coral reefs, without the damaging environmental impacts normally associated with concrete production. Other fascinating examples can be found here.
Of course, it is cumbersome to get biologists, architects, designers, and engineers all in the same room to leverage their unique perspective on problems, but I’m encouraged by thinking that nature has already solved most of our most pressing problems. And nothing is wasted in nature.
Most interesting was the new way of thinking that Biomimicry offers. Rather than focusing on developing a new paint that lasts longer on houses, Biomimicry asks us what we are trying to accomplish? Cover houses without chipping? Why — to change the mood or personalize a home? How does nature change colors? Nature changes colors by using light and reflection and it yields amazing results that don’t degrade or need to be maintained. So why are spending so much time making a better paint to coat our homes?
While seeming abstract, it also could be highly relevant to dealing with things like storm water and building structures that can gently survive floods by adopting techniques used by systems that have survived flooding and water damage for millions of years. This phenomenon of superstorms in new to us. But Nature has a dearth of time-tested solutions we could employ if only we’d be willing to ask her for her.
I encourage everyone to learn more about the unique Biomimicry problem-solving process at the Biomimicry Institute, which has education resources online as well as an “Ask Nature” portal where interested planners, architects, designers and community members can pose fundamental questions and generate answers leveraging the problem-solving prowess of the natural world.
I don’t know about you, but I feel the need to be getting into the solution in this world. I’m so sick of blaming and reacting and making the same mistakes again and again. I suspect that why this new approach appeals to me. It feels like we are asking the wrong questions and imposing our convoluted will on this planet and I’m ready for a shift in thinking.
Who’s with me?
Boonedoggler 