INTRODUCING
Our design challenges and our incubation programme have supported or led to the creation of numerous companies. Examples include Biofractal, a consulting firm in bio-inspiration in Mexico, and New York-based Nexloop, which designs biomimetic systems that capture water in the atmosphere for urban agriculture. But also Mangrove Still and BioCultivator, two teams taking part in a large-scale project in Greece to create a sustainable closed-loop community water system.
How do these Design Challenges help your initiative and what types of solutions do they develop?
They serve two purposes: to offer the teams of students and professionals who enter this annual contest an opportunity to learn free of charge, and to provide a terrain that is conducive to the launch of biomimetic solutions on the market.
One of the most creative solutions I have seen so far is the Air Ballast freighter, which reinvents the management of ballast water that ships release to remain stable, in order to reduce the transportation of non- indigenous species2, a major ecological disaster for the marine world. This ship design uses air for ballast, instead of water. The team developed the solution by observing how aquatic organisms remain buoyant by regulating the quantity of air in their different internal compartments, without using any water. They imitated this type of strategy by designing a series of inflatable compartments attached to the hull of a ship in order to maintain its buoyancy.
How is biomimicry spreading today? Has is extended beyond the world of design?
Today, we can no longer keep up with all the networks of players and the university courses dedicated to biomimicry! The European Biomimicry Centre of Excellence. (CEEBIOS) in Senlis, France, Biokon in Germany, Biomimicry NL in the Netherlands, Bioversum in Austria, Akron University in the United States and many more are all working to promote sustainable innovation initiatives inspired by the living world.
To begin with, the work was commissioned by architects, designers, biologists and, occasionally, entrepreneurs. But biomimicry has broken into many new disciplines in recent years and this trend should continue. It will become more academic and scientific, and will be used by economic players in a more rigorous manner. We can even look forward to the deployment of numerous tools that will make for easier access to knowledge
2 - Species that are introduced into waters where they did not previously exist, in this case by discharging the untreated ballast water.
In recent years, biomimicry has invested many new disciplines and this trend is expected to continue.
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