Special Issue on Biologically Inspired Design

Abstract

The special issue consists of 13 significant articles. The first section contains two survey articles. In “â€کWhere Are We Now and Where Are We Going?’: The BioM Innovation Database,â€‌ Jacobs, Nichol, and Helms carefully and rigorously attempt to identify and archive the state of bioinspired design practice as it exists in actual artifacts, products, and systems. Specifically, the authors address four questions. (1) Are products which are identified as being bioinspired actually bioinspired? (2) To what extent do bioinspired designs mimic the forms, processes, and interactions of biological systems? (3) To what extent do bioinspired designs exploit the scale and range of biological systems? (4) What patterns of design practice can we learn from successful bioinspired design practitioners? Their process begins by collecting existing bioinspired designs into a database that they can query for specific information about the design. Specific information is collected on 380 designs. The research team extensively interviewed bioinspired design practitioners to create rich and detailed knowledge about the bioinspired design. Although the processing and documentation of the state of bioinspired design is ongoing, the research team did learn that more designs are solution based than challenge based, most designs claiming to be bioinspired are, and most bioinspired design teams are multidisciplinary and struggle with communication between the disciplines. Also, the research team discovered that bioinspired design may be coopted as a marketing element, thus decreasing the value and rigor of the bioinspired design process.