Biomimicry

Nature, working for over 4 billion years on its’ process of efficiency has evolved as the perfect ecological machine. It is the only system where nothing is wasted. Abundance, biodiversity, and cooperation is its’ cornerstone of resilience.

For only a few thousand years humans believed that this abundance was a flaw needing to be conquered and in only a few hundred years that story eviscerated nature’s biodiversity. Fortunately, the humility and acknowledgment of this reality has offered new perspectives to be realized and the elephant in the room is biomimicry. Nature offers it’s principles of efficiency, trickery, and cooperation to us and at Phi we fully acknowledge and embrace this.

In the realm of design, specifically industrial design, biomimicry is being used time and time again solving countless challenges humans face today.

Here’s one far flung thought to get your noodle moving; In the field of space and aeronautics the problem with atmospheric dust abrading the wings and jet engines is a multimillion dollar maintenance issue. This has been a long standing issue since man took is running first steps into the lower atmosphere. But now, scientists have decided to ask nature (biomimicry) how it solves the problem of abrasion and they’re getting some great feedback.

The desert seems to be an unlikely spot to search for answers to this riddle, but they’ve found a species of scorpion who, whilst others dig and burrow into the sand when sand-storms arise, will tough it out on the surface taking a beating by sand particles that would strip paint of metal. This scorpion, or Androctonus australis, is one tough cookie! When studied under fluoresce — the chitin exoskeleton of the scorpion revealed that it had small domes ranging in size from 10 microns high and between 25 and 80 microns across. This was their silver bullet. If they could slow the rate by half, as the scorpion has done, then they could obviously cut rates of maintenance spending by half and increase the safety for passengers!

Biomimicry holds a long sought after key to many man-made challenges we face today. When solving design challenges brought to us by clients, we often ask, “How does nature solve this problem?” Nature has had 3.8 billion years to evolve and within each species niche there are thousands of solutions being played out on a daily basis, often times second by second.

The Androctonus australis is just one example of many more solutions to come. The next time a challenge pops up in your organization, ask nature how it’s done.

Chalk another one up for solutions from nature!

For more WILD information on creatures and their tactics for survival, check out: www.asknature.org

-R.Irwin