The Ambition of Biomimicry in Design

Janine Benyas, the original author of Biomimicry, discusses the ambition of biomimicry in design. She emphasizes the need for buildings, infrastructure, and roadways to pull their ecological weight by storing water, carbon, cooling the air, mitigating floods, and stopping erosion. Benyas advocates for designing with biomimetic materials and benchmarking biological systems to understand the ecosystem services they provide. She suggests that landscape architects and architects should incorporate elements that attract nesting and pollinating species, create habitats, and purify water. Examples include using biomimetic cement to sequester CO2 in buildings and HVAC systems that clean the air.