Folie to Building Development week 05

This week we were introduced to our selected theme group topic and tutor. My chosen theme is 'Learning from Nature' with Yvonne.
I personally have alwyas loved the idea of mimicing nature in design, and now that I think of it, I have always designed sustainably throughout my architectual degree. I chose this topic to further my understanding of sustainable design, and became very attached to the idea of BIOMIMICRY.

Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a new discipline that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solce human problems. For example studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell. Some think of it as "innovation inspired by nature".

LOOKING AT NATURE AS MODEL, MEASURE AND MENTOR

If we want to consciously emulate nature's genius, we need to look at nature differently. In biomimicry, we look at nature as model, measure, and mentor.

Nature as model: Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature’s models and then emulates these forms, process, systems, and strategies to solve human problems – sustainably. The Biomimicry Guild and its collaborators have developed a practical design tool, called the Biomimicry Design Spiral, for using nature as model.

Nature as measure: Biomimicry uses an ecological standard to judge the sustainability of our innovations. After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has learned what works and what lasts. Nature as measure is captured in Life's Principles and is embedded in the evalute step of the Biomimicry Design Spiral.

Nature as mentor: Biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but what we can learn from it.
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The brief given to us, specific to 'Learning from Nature' is quite broad, as Yvonne wants us to develop this further as the weeks pass and we become more fluent in regards to Biomimicry.

-We are designing a space of learning, informal learning, no schools or education centres. Our ideas need to be investigated, argued and portrayed thoroughly.
-No typical sita analysis! We are to focus specifically on environmental studies, social, cultural and political situations.

During the tutorial, some questions arose about specific technologies to mimic. We are not expected to invent our own form of biomimicry, but to use the technologies already available to us to properly suit our designs. We are not to just find something that looks cool, and put it where it may suit, but to find something specific to our building design. 

We were asked to prepare 5 key words to sum up project 01, folie design. Mine are as follows:
-Journey
-Metaphorical Limbo
-Representative
-Bleak Textures
-Experience