'Biomimicry draws us far beyond the limits of the narrow and intellectual habitat of industrialized design and reminds us of the dual nature of our present circumstances as designers: how small a part we play in, and yet what enormous responsibility we have, to the “whole.”' An excerpt taken from Fashion & Sustainability: Design for Change (2012, Laurence King) by Kate Fletcher and Lynda Grose.
Practical magic: Fractal Geometry
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| Using the example of an equilateral triangle, Donella Meadows explains that when another such triangle is added at the center of each side and the pattern repeated, an elaborate shape results. The Koch snowflake illustrates that biomimicry is not simply a tool for copying. Rather, it is understanding and applying nature’s principles—surprisingly simple at their core. |
Kate Fletcher and Lynda Grose discuss Janine Benyus' basic guidelines for designers who wish to evaluate their own ideas and actions for using biomimicry models. Benyus states that designers should use Nature as a model, as a measure and as a mentor. Without all three guidelines the full potential of biomimicry might not be realised.
Nature as measure: where nature is used as an ecological standard to judge the “rightness” of our innovation, e.g., considering how much energy (and what type) does the solar panel use in its production and whether the energy it saves during use justifies this investment.
Nature as mentor: where nature is viewed and valued in a new way. It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on what we can learn from it, e.g., developing solar technology that can be installed close to the point of use, rather than developing desert wilderness areas into solar-panel farms.
'Designers may be frustrated at the lack of access and means for implementing biomimicry innovations.'
Fletcher and Grose continue to discuss the starting point of biomimicry for fashion designers which is usually the physical materiality - the textiles.
Advantageous: It is sometimes enough to change the surface of textiles without having to change the chemistry of them; just take a look at Sharklet, for example.
Disadvantageous: The enhancement of fabrics and fibers are usually housed within the labs of technical Universities thus making the knowledge of these material developments difficult to access. The frustrations of the designer's difficulty accessing information are "indicators of old work habits".
I acknowledge that the perceived "old work habits" are a second-nature reaction to the pressure as a retailer for quick turn around in conception, to production to shop floor for consumer use. The ever growing competition will not allow designers to slow down the speed of their collection's readiness. But, I believe this ethos is practiced by the high street designers and retailers.
The designers who want to achieve greatness in their developments are doing so. Take a look at these three designers for inspiration:
Karen Ingham - Pollinator Frocks. Protecting the symbiotic relationships of declining species through interdisciplinary collaboration with entomologists, botanists, microscopists, surface pattern technologists and print and coating engineers. (Nature as a model:) The fabrics of the pollinator frocks were treated with pollinator food sources that replicate nectar. Ingham designed frocks to attract bees and butterflies; the patterned fabric acts as 'wearable gardens'.
Donna Sgro - Morphotex. Sydney designer Donna Sgro designed a frock from the Morphotex, a nanotechnology-based, structurally coloured fiber that mimics the microscopic structure of the Morpho butterfly’s wings. Manufactured by Teijin in Japan. (Nature as a measure:) No dyes or pigments are used for Morphotex, and because the dyeing process is skipped so is the water and energy consumption that is used in conventional dyeing.
Suzanne Lee - BioCouture. Imagine if we could grow clothing. Suzanne Lee is realising that potential. She is collaborating with scientists to unite design with cutting edge bio and nano-technologies. (Nature as a mentor?:) Together they are investigating the use of microbial-cellulose, grown in a laboratory, to produce clothing.
-Going back to the koch snowflake and Benyus' work; to understand the distinction of biomimicry's purpose is critical. It's too easy for designers to use biomimicry to sell novelty and feign green credentials. However, the authenticity of smart design will be exceptionally difficult to feign (of many factors) and only those who have the mastery of their field should succeed in discovering biomimicry's power.
Returning to thoughts on consumerism and the need for speed of retailers: Fletcher and Grose state that "Fabric and product development, ecology, business motivations, and consumer behaviour must co-evolve to achieve optimum sustainability benefits."
The reality is that all affecting factors of the design's lifecycle must co-evolve together. There needs to be a balance of consciousness between the factors, especially that of the relationship between the consumer's behaviour and the businesses motives or vice versa. In the product lifecycle case, or for the basic biomimicry guidelines of model, measure and mentor; one without the other is extracting potential power away from an extremely powerful medium.
