A methodology for the generation of biomimetic design concepts

Abstract

Systems found in nature provide a large database of strategies and mechanisms that can be implemented in biomimetic designs. Although several biomimetic design strategies are currently available, the generation of a successful design concept is still challenging. A major challenge is the absence of a systematic selective design methodology that is capable of identifying the relevant systems and then abstracting their strategies and mechanisms.In this paper, some existing biomimetic design strategies applied for nature emulation are analysed. As an outcome, a methodology for the generation of biomimetic design concepts is developed. The design methodology selects dominant strategies that function simultaneously in nature and provides selective user-friendly tools, which facilitate the generation of preliminary design concepts. An example for the generation process of a design concept is presented.

Form Follows Environment: Biomimetic Approaches to Building Envelope Design for Environmental Adaptation

“…Two main approaches with various terminologies exist in biomimetics: (1) solution-based, where an observation of nature inspires a technological application; and (2) problem-based, where a solution from nature is sought for a particular engineering problem. Despite some differences in the initial phases between the two approaches, both show a similar trend in the transfer from the biological to technological domain [10].…”

“…However, such traits seldom retain any function of the imitated systems from nature, and therefore hardly represent a successful biomimetic design. The main challenges remain: the broad range of possibilities, the difficulties in the representation of the biophysical knowledge, and the challenging abstraction and transformation of relevant principles [10]. Nonetheless, the emerging biomimetic methods and frameworks for architectural applications are gaining a systematic trend to facilitate design concept generation, rather than limiting to specific examples [10,45,[60][61][62][63].…”

“…In this work, we follow the systematic approach of [10,45], where solutions for environmental adaptation are sought from nature and classified based on their functional attributes. The classification of biophysical information based on functional aspects is a favorable approach for transformation in biomimetics, as systems in nature have a functional reason, thus establishing a suitable analogy is more relevant.…”

“…The following sections elaborate on these two areas, and define potential convergences to facilitate a biomimetic design process towards environmental adaptation. architectural applications are gaining a systematic trend to facilitate design concept generation, rather than limiting to specific examples [10,45,[60][61][62][63].…”

Biomimetics and its tools

“…If this design fulfils the three criteria for the definition of a biomimetic product 10 (which are (a) function analysis of a biological system, (b) abstraction from the system to a model and (c) transfer and application without using the biological system), it is considered not only to be biologically inspired, but also to be biomimetic. Different overall process descriptions of biomimetics which describe the phases of the process in Practicefor example, BioGen 7 or the Biomimicry DesignLens 11 (see also Fu et al…”