Yogita MandalDesign ResearcherDesign Researcher

E

d

u

c

Industrial design

Rel

eva

nce

of

Bio

mim

icry

in

Ed

uca

tion

fo

r

Su

sta

ina

ble

Des

ign

2010

2000

1990

c

a

t

i

o

n

Sustainable

Design

Biomimicry

Rel

eva

nce

of

Bio

mim

icry

in

Ed

uca

tion

fo

r

Su

sta

ina

ble

Des

ign

OverviewOverviewOverviewOverview

The word or we can say the ‘notion’ of Sustainability has become an extensive area of research since the termemerged in late 1980s due to the negative effects of unsustainable practices taking place in production tofulfill the consumption need and patterns of increasing population. This unsustainable pattern of productionand consumption is affecting our social equity, environmental stewardship and economic development.

Sustainable

Design

and consumption is affecting our social equity, environmental stewardship and economic development.There have been various approaches developed for product design and education within the contextsustainability.Sustainable development has become an important subject for our sustainable future and to bring awarenessin this field, ‘Education for Sustainable Development’ has become very essential. There are so manyapproaches towards solving these problems and Biomimicry is one of those approaches. Its implications forproduct design education have recently started to be explored. Biomimicry as an approach constitutes thepotential to achieve sustainability, taking inspiration from nature as mentor, as model and as measure.This research is about exploring the relevance of biomimicry in design education. During this research,students from four Design Schools in Delhi namely- National Institute of Fashion Technology, IndianInstitute of Technology, School of Planning and Architecture and J D Institute of Fashion Technology weresurveyed to investigate their awareness, current approach and insights along with the opportunities inbiomimicry and design education for sustainability in India. The analysis presents the views of students andeducators followed by overview on opportunities to develop design education in India.

ProblemProblemProblemProblem DefinitionDefinitionDefinitionDefinition:Biomimicry is an interdisciplinary approach towards sustainable development and human being is using thisapproach for a very long time but today we need more sustainable designs to improve the current situationof society, economy and environment – our Earth. Integrating biomimicry into the idea generation phaseof the product design and development process has many pros and cons such as the interdisciplinary nature,the lack of biology knowledge and the inability of analyzing that knowledge, etc. The newly-developinginterdisciplinary methodologies (e.g. biomimicry spirals, biologists at design table, etc.) have not beencurrently incorporated even into the industrial design (ID) education. As this approach constitutes thepotential to achieve sustainability, taking inspiration from Nature as mentor, as model and as measure.Along with environmental, we can cover social and economical aspects also. Yet, the implementations ofBiomimicry approach for sustainable product design education have not been fully explored.

ObjectivesObjectivesObjectivesObjectives::::To study the role of biomimicry in developing theSustainability of a System

Methodology :Methodology :Methodology :Methodology :Secondary ResearchSustainability and its significance, Biomimicry and its significance, Biomimicry as an integrated pedagogy in Design Education and 21st century Indian Design education system.Primary ResearchMixed method- Conclusive research with thematic coding and analysis was performed1. Preliminary study and semi-structured interview to the Students (Industrial Design and Accessory Design).2. Semi-structured interview to the Designers, Educators and Biomimicry specialists.3. Data analysis ( Quantitative and Qualitative data) includes Content analysis, Thematic Coding and analysis where themes were created.

Sustainability of a SystemTo investigate the level of the awareness of biomimicryamong the students in Indian Design SchoolsTo study how biomimicry is currently being used bystudents in their design process Examples of the approaches followed by the participants

ConclusionConclusionConclusionConclusion::::Design education in India needs to add tothe existing approach for giving a better andsustainable future to the education forsustainable design. Even though designeducation in India has multi-disciplinary andbiomimicry approach present in traces, intheir design process, they are not being ableto implement it into their designssuccessfully. It needs to expand the usage.The focus on designs should be moretowards sustainability along with aestheticsand functionality of a product.

Examples of the approaches followed by the participants

Sustainability needs to be regarded as a basicconcept of designing and students need tointer-relate their specializations to thesystems in nature. Instead of focusing onlyon industrial demand, focus has to be onboth industrial and earth’s demands equally.

The need is to understand the differencebetween the biomimicry approach followedin past and approach needed in present todevelop the future i.e. recaptured view pointof biomimicry approach towards energy andenvironmental concerns.

Biomimicry