Biomimicry and sustainable design are in the news a lot these days. The first public site dedicated to applying bio-mimicry to our everyday world, AskNature.org is a new collection of design solutions found in nature.
Biomimicry attempts to apply the same design principles used in nature in order to create sustainable solutions to our design challenges. In an effort to make these sustainable design principles more accessible, AskNature.org is a free database of nature's solutions to any number of design challenges. The database is meant to serve as inspiration for architects, designers, engineers, students, etc. to create more sustainable products.
AskNature's designs strategies are organized according to the more general challenge that nature solves. You can search or browse for specific strategies, such as capturing rainwater or keeping a structure dry.
As I was browsing through the site, I couldn't help but be amazed at two things...how efficiently nature handles these small (or large) design challenges and how ingeniously these same design principles are applied to products to create new sustainable designs. For instance, who would have ever thought that the topography of a butterfly's wing would inspire an innovative exterior paint that requires no cleaning.
As it states on AskNature, "it's amazing what a 3.8 billion year head start can do when it comes to problem solving."
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