Week 4: Biomimicry Basics

So last week I worked on a design that was influenced by the biological design of bamboo. Bamboo was an interesting organism to address considering it is one of the most sustainable and strong materials that we use in our world today. I think it is only appropriate to try and mimic its biological properties with a different material such as metal to appropriate into the design.

Image from here

Taking into consideration the six Life Principles, here is what I have to say:

1) Locally Attuned and Responsive:

This design is resourceful in the way that it relies on an already organically efficient organism in order to survive structurally. Everything about bamboo’s design and structure is about opportunities and limitations in how it is able to resist breakage and reinforce itself from jeopardizing its own structural integrity in the natural world. Through mimicking this design, we are able to utilize this method and transfer its properties into a different medium

2) Integrates Cyclic Processes:

In a sense the processes of this cycle are cyclical. The growth and formation of bamboo in nature is cyclical in the way the it can repair itself easily. This a product like this with something as reactive as metal, it’s difficult to tell how abundant the cyclical processes would be for a product like this.

3) Resilient:

This design is incredibly resilient to change and force within its structure. The pattern of groups of materials bunched together in ever bigger bunches creates strength and balance with the whole structure due to many forms reacting together rather than a single form reacting. The design incorporates redundancy by design through the bunches creating a pattern that builds the structure itself. I guess you can say that it does co-evolve with the other parts of the system in the way that it reacts with other materials that are similar in the whole.

Image from here

4) Optimizing Rather than Maximizing:

This is somewhat different. This product does not have compostable materials but they are recyclable materials. If one structure is damaged in some way, the metal could be melted down and created into yet another structure with the same principles easily because of its repetitive form. Bunches that are damaged could be removed and bunches that are not damaged could be taken away and replaced into other bunches to make a working whole. With the materials, it could be repurposed through the form of melting the material down, or even keeping its shape and being used for another purpose such as roadwork or household construction.

5) Benign Manufacturing:

The product isn’t necessarily made of life-friendly materials. Through more research, there could be a replacement material, such as bamboo itself that would be sustainable and eco-friendly rather than metal. The reactions for this product do not rely on self-assembly but rather on self-obedience. Reacting with other parts of the whole to form one strong piece. The product is not built to shape. It must either be cut or molded to its form and then bound together to become a whole.

6) Leveraging Interdependence:

This design does foster symbiotic, cooperative, relationships with the product itself as a whole. With the cooperation of other elements within the form, the shape and form is maintained by the structural soundness of the form through each different group.

Biologically, this system is not actually cooperative or community-based because of its material.

Image from here