The Evolution of Design Process - Sustainable Design: The Science of Sustainability and Green Engineering - page 25

Duke University is a leader in environmental and biomedical engineering re-
search. Emulating nature is a prominent area of research, especially the research
that is taking place in the Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material
Systems. Nature has been extremely successful in design at a vast range of scales.
The elegance of the simplicity of a virus, and the complexity of a blue whale or
a giant redwood tree, testify to the efficiency and effectiveness of natural systems.
So, then, what can we learn from a tree as a system that can be emulated in good
design?
If we think about the tree as a design entity, it is a very efficient and effective
“factory” that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, accrues solar en-
ergy, makes complex sugars and food, creates microclimates, and self-replicates. 13
Beyond a single tree, the ecological association and community of trees makes use
of what nature has to offer. It takes up chemical raw materials (nutrients) using
two subsystems, roots and stomata. Thus, the community of trees makes use of
two fluids, water and air, to obtain the chemicals needed to survive. Further-
more, a collective of trees is more than just a group. A stand of 100 trees is not
the same as the product of 100 times a single tree. The collective system differs
from the individual tree's system. Engineers and architects can learn much from
biologists, especially the concept of symbiosis. There are synergies, tree-to-tree
relationships, as well as relationships between the trees and the abiotic components
(nonliving features, such as the sand and clay in soils and the nitrogen in the
atmosphere and soil water). The tree system also depends on and is affected by
other living things, that comprise the biotic environment, including microbes in
the soil that transform chemical compounds, allowing trees to use them as nutri-
ents, and insects that allow sexual reproduction via pollination. So what would
it be like to design a building in a manner similar to how nature shapes a tree?
What are the possibilities of designing a city that is like a forest? In Chapter 7 we
discuss the tree as a design component.
Principles of Biomimicry
Living systems reflect the “new” design model. In her topic Biomimicry , Janine
Benyus argues that nature presents a workable model for innovation worthy of
imitation. The biomimicry model looks to nature as a learning resource rather
than merely as a natural resource commodity to be extracted from the Earth.
Benyus writes that “nature would provide the models: solar cells copied from
leaves, steely fibers woven spider-style, shatterproof ceramics drawn frommother-
of-pearl, cancer cures complements of chimpanzees, perennial grains inspired by
tallgrass, computers that signal like cells, and a closed-loop economy that takes
its lessons from redwoods, coral reefs, and oak-hickory forests.” 14