Growing the practice of biomimicry: opportunities for mission-based organisations based on a global survey of practitioners

Rovalo, Erin; McCardle, John; Smith, Ethan; Hooker, Gretchen

doi:10.1080/09537325.2019.1634254

Cited by 11 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…There is a significant challenge in integrating research and development with urban biomimetic practice [ 24 ]. Designing teams highlighted the different temporalities and the positive aspects of integrating research and specialists in the projects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomimicry in French Urban Projects: Trends and Perspectives from the Practice

Blanco

Cruz²,

Lequette³

et al. 2021

Biomimetics

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Biomimicry is a design framework with growing interests in sustainable architectural and urban design practice. Nevertheless, there is a significant lack of studies and knowledge regarding its practical application. In 2020, a French workgroup called Biomim’City Lab published a document identifying and describing 16 urban projects designed by French teams integrating biomimicry at various levels. Our research is an opportunistic study analyzing this data, aiming to identify trends and challenges in the French market. We analyzed the projects using a mixed-method approach, through quantitative typological analysis and qualitative narrative analysis. This sample of French projects indicates a trend of increasing interest in biomimicry on built space projects in France. Biomimicry was primarily applied at the façade/roof/soil systems, mostly using macroscopic models as ecosystems, plants, and animals. Designers declared to aim diverse objectives with the biomimetic approach; still, thermal comfort is the most recurrent in the sample. We also identified that challenges remain to foster the field application, as the lack of awareness of the urban fabric stakeholders on the topic and the gaps between research and design practice.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomimicry in French Urban Projects: Trends and Perspectives from the Practice

Blanco

Cruz²,

Lequette³

et al. 2021

Biomimetics

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“…Our approach directly addresses previously stated obstacles most often observed in engineering and design courses ( Graeff et al 2020 , 2021 ; Lenau et al 2018 ; Nagel et al 2019 ). “In practice, it has been acknowledged that challenges exist for designers and engineers in accessing and interpreting principles in life sciences through academic literature” ( Rovalo et al 2020 ). We developed a simple method, Discovery Decomposition , to understand a scientific publication (see Supplement S2 ).…”

Section: Bioinspired Design Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eyes Toward Tomorrow Program Enhancing Collaboration, Connections, and Community Using Bioinspired Design

Bhatti

Jennings

Ruopp

et al. 2021

Integrative and Comparative Biology

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The goal of our i4’s Toward Tomorrow Program is to enrich the future workforce with STEM by providing students with an early, inspirational, interdisciplinary experience fostering inclusive excellence. We attempt to open the eyes of students who never realized how much their voice is urgently needed by providing an opportunity for involvement, imagination, invention, and innovation. Students see how what they are learning, designing, and building matters to their own life, community, and society. Our program embodies convergence by obliterating artificially created, disciplinary boundaries to go far beyond STEM or even STEAM by including artists, designers, social scientists, and entrepreneurs collaborating in diverse teams using scientific discoveries to create inventions that could shape our future. Our program connects two recent revolutions by amplifying Bioinspired Design with the Maker Movement and its democratizing effects empowering anyone to innovate and change the world. Our course is founded in original discovery. We explain the process of biological discovery and the importance of scaling, constraints, and complexity in selecting systems for bioinspired design. By spotlighting scientific writing and publishing, students become more science literate, learn how to decompose a biology research paper, extract the principles, and then propose a novel design by analogy. Using careful, early scaffolding of individual design efforts, students build the confidence to interact in teams. Team building exercises increase self-efficacy and reveal the advantages of a diverse set of minds. Final team video and poster project designs are presented in a public showcase. Our program forms a student-centered creative action community comprised of a large-scale course, student-led classes, and a student-created university organization. The program structure facilitates a community of learners that shifts the students' role from passive knowledge recipients to active co-constructors of knowledge being responsible for their own learning, discovery, and inventions. Students build their own shared database of discoveries, classes, organizations, research openings, internships, and public service options. Students find next step opportunities so they can see future careers. Description of our program here provides the necessary context for our future publications on assessment that examine 21st century skills, persistence in STEM, and creativity.

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“…In another study with practitioners, a survey was completed by 270 biomimicry-practitioners. This study revealed a range of opportunities for growing the practice, like fostering industry-academia collaboration to merge the biggest employment sector of biomimicry practitioners (academia) with the highest likelihood of biomimicry projects reaching implementation (industry projects) or promoting bestpractices for interdisciplinary working effectively involving life-science personnel (Rovalo et al, 2019). The latter opportunity is also put to attention in an experimental setup with postdoctoral students, where the superiority of engineer/biologist pairs in analogical transfer and ideation when compared to singledisciplinary design pairs are displayed (Hashemi Farzaneh, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between Functions and Outcomes of Biologically-Inspired Design

Svendsen¹,

Lenau

Hansen

2021

Proc. Des. Soc.

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Research in biologically-inspired design (BID) practice often focus on team composition or ideation based on an already discovered fascinating biological solution principle. However, how are the outcome of the early design phases affecting BID projects' quality?In this study, historical data from 91 reports from student teams documenting their BID efforts from a 3-week course constitute the data source. Thus, the relationship between design problem types, function types, functions descriptions and BID projects' quality is addressed.The study show that especially design problem types and function descriptions affect the BID projects' quality. For instance, BID projects dealing with open-ended problems yield better results than redesign problems with existing solutions operating in a very domain-limited solution space. Next, BID projects obtain the best results when using functions as drivers for analogy searching rather than properties. Finally, BID projects with certain function types seem to have more complicated conceptualization phases.

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Growing the practice of biomimicry: opportunities for mission-based organisations based on a global survey of practitioners

Cited by 11 publications

References 18 publications

Biomimicry in French Urban Projects: Trends and Perspectives from the Practice

Biomimicry in French Urban Projects: Trends and Perspectives from the Practice

Eyes Toward Tomorrow Program Enhancing Collaboration, Connections, and Community Using Bioinspired Design

The Relationship Between Functions and Outcomes of Biologically-Inspired Design

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