Biomimicry for a Sustainable Built Environment

October 29 -  31, 2008
ZooAtlanta
Atlanta, GA
Workshop Information (PDF)
AIA Atlanta

ZooAtlanta
14.5 HSW LUs

Members: $275
Non-Members: $375

Registration*

Join AIA Atlanta and the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) as we host the Biomimicry Guild, a team of design-savvy biologists who teach technical an evolving methodology that incorporates nature’s design strategies into the design process. This intermingling has the potential to produce innovative, life-enhancing products, architecture, and communities.

Schedule
Wednesday October 29 (Coca-Cola World Theater) 8-9:30pm Biomimicy Lecture (following AIA Atlanta Annual Meeting)
An Introduction to Biomimicry for designers, architects, and the public. This lecture is packed full of case studies and very current information on innovations in the field.

Thursday October 30 (Ford Conservancy Hall) 8am-5pm Workshop Hands-on activities to engage architects in biomimicry as a design methodology.

Friday October 31 (Ford Conservancy Hall) 8am-3pm Workshop Continued

 

About Biomimicry and the Biomimicry Guild
Biomimicry is an innovation method that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's time-tested patterns and strategies, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf. The goal is to create products, processes, and policies---new ways of living---that are well-adapted to life on earth over the long haul. The Biomimicry Guild helps innovators learn from and emulate natural models through workshops, research reports, biological consulting, and field excursions.

The core idea in biomimicry is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers.
hey have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. This is the real news of biomimicry: After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival.

The conscious emulation of life's genius is a survival strategy for the human race, a path to a sustainable future. The more our world functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone.

For centuries, biologists have been in labs and fields taking notes on the adaptive strategies life has developed, and uncovering the deep ecological principles that define the forward progression of life. Unfortunately, much of this information is inaccessible, locked up in technical, scientific papers written for other biologists, and rarely organized by engineering or design function.

The Biomimicry Guild has proven methods and experience in accessing this information. We have a staff of biologists, known as BaDTs (Biologists at the Design Table), who excel at searching through biological research to find the natural strategies that meet your company’s challenges, and then assessing which of those designs, chemical recipes, or system strategies are most promising for your needs. Our staff is also adept at taking complex and technical biological data and translating it into language digestible by any business department, from marketing to R&D.

In this inspirational workshop, BaDTs Rose Tocke and Taryn Mead , will introduce the emerging discipline of biomimicry and demonstrate the viable sustainable solutions that arise when inquisitive humans ask nature for solutions to our design challenges. An evening lecture includes unique images of nature coupled with the technologies inspired by them to tell the story of a world in which humans fit in with the environment, meeting our needs while simultaneously creating conditions conducive for all Life. Building on case studies relevant to architectural interests, Rose Tocke will introduce the time-tested adaptations of the genius around us and provide the fodder for new questions, the answers to which will help create a vision for a sustainable future. Through the conscious emulation of Nature’s Genius, designers of our systems can imagine innovative sustainable solutions that will transform our world by mimicking nature’s forms, processes and ecosystems.

During the following two days, the workshop participants will learn how to use the Biomimicry Guild’s methodology for biomimetic design innovation. The team will introduce several tools to assist designers in the biomimetic design process and facilitate hands-on opportunities for applying these tools to a design challenge.

 

Please visit the AIA Atlanta Web site for more information or to register.

*Those wishing to register after  Friday, October 24, 2008 should contact Victoria Major at 404-222-0099 x105.