Where do you find inspiration? Artists have always found inspiration in nature, from the oldest cave wall paintings to Hokusai, Marianne North, Monet, Ansel Adams, Frank Lloyd Wright, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Javiera Estrada. Nature’s billions of years of design and innovation, trial and error, upheaval and rejuvenation is there to explore.
How much of art and the drive to create derives from the impulse to investigate, to see what’s next, what’s around the next corner? I am still compelled to see what’s over the next hill, around the bend of the river. Combining our native curiosity with the eyes of both artist and scientist, inventor and engineer, carries us unpredictably; carries us to discoveries unforeseen and fortuitous. It’s captivating detective work that taps into our curiosity and our sense of wonder – our need for discovery.
Long ago I took a course in environmental design. An assignment was to look for form in nature and draw it. I began to notice that branches on my tomato plants were arranged on the stalk along a predictable helical line that stretched from the soil to the top of the plants. I began to find this pattern in many other plants – not all, around my neighborhood. I drew them. It was a cool assignment that is still with me after 40 years.
What I didn’t realize and did not have a name for until many years later was that I had recognized the Fibonacci sequence – the golden ratio. What I didn’t realize was that I had begun exploring the territory of Biomimicry.
Biomimicry
Janine Benyus wrote the book on the subject that started many on their investigation of Biomimicry.
Janine’s book also helped spawn the Biomimicry Institute. They define biomimicry as:
“Biomimicry is a practice that learns from and mimics the strategies used by living organisms to solve challenges comparable to the ones we face as individuals and societies.”
The Institute is dedicated “to spread the practice of looking to the solutions developed by living organisms over billions of years to provide insight and inspiration for effective, efficient, and sustainable innovations and approaches to addressing our own challenges.”
*Note* The Biomimicry Institute has created a collaborative online community called the AskNature Hive that “believes in the power of harnessing nature’s strategies to transform the way we live, design, and build for the better.”
The AskNature Hive may be for you.
Patterns in nature abound. They can inform and inspire. I think of biomimicry as the creative investigation of form and function in nature.
Velcro
Shinkansen Bullet Train
Whale powered wind turbines
Blue Morpho Butterfly (Morpho menelaus)
The Blue Morpho is a large blue butterfly that I frequently see outside my window. It’s Costa Rica’s leading insect ambassador. People remember them for their striking color. Blue Morphos are not blue – at least not in the conventional sense. We normally see blue because of chemical pigments that absorb some wavelengths and reflect the blue part of the spectrum back to our eyes. Blue Morphos have none. They have nano-scale structures on their wings that diffract the light, canceling out certain wavelengths and intensifying and reflecting others. The Morpho seems bluer than blue.
If we can biomimic the Blue Morpho’s pallet control we could color surfaces and the color would not fade from chemical pigments breaking down in the sun. Imagine paint on your house or car or whatever you like that never fades. We might also be able to control temperature by creating nano-engineered coatings that keep us cool or warm passively.
Nature - Your Creative Partner
If you drive an Audi there’s a chance that your dials are easy to read at night because they are copies of the non-reflective eyes of moths. Your swimsuit may be a replica of shark’s skin to help you scoot through the water. The little helicopter that was flying around on Mars did so after learning a few things from dragonflies. Bioprospecting, searching ecosystems like rainforests and jungles and marine environments for new compounds, is offering us new medicines. Biomimicry is all around us. Our environment is an endless resource for creative inspiration and innovation.
A part of the Creative E-Volution runs through biomimicry. I’ve been focused on engineering solutions in this article but biomimicry also provides fertile ground for educators, artists and beyond. Biomimicry can provide a wealth of inspiration and activity in the classroom, the studio, the lab, and the boardroom. It is a natural playmate of our innate curiosity.
Thanks for your attention. Please contact me if you would like more information or have suggestions.
– Steven Greenleaf (@Leafy).
More from the Creative e-volution
To join the conversation about environmental hope, check out the Creative Evolution Group and make sure to join us at our regular meet ups where we discuss topics like those above, as well as ways we at the Creative Revolution can proactively become a part of creating a future for us all.
