Biomimicry, an inspiration for architects, designers and artists.

On 4th of May, we took an interesting lecture on Biomimicry and the possible inspiration for architects, designers and artists, in LdM Institute, Florence. Our welcome guest was Carlo Santulli, professor of "Materials, Science and Technology" at University of Camerino. He spokes about the importance to become more aware about natural processes and structures and how the use of this knowledge may be possible in art and design.

Here is a brief presentation of the lecture:

"If we read the first book of Janine Benyus, the founder of the Biomimicry science, we can easily understand how amazing the capacity of Nature is and how little we know about it. But with the new awareness of the last 20 years, we are becoming more sensitive and respectful towards our environment, because we are getting to know it better.

Watching carefully, we discovered that Nature runs its processes at room temperature, with normal pressure, using water like solvent and all this is done without producing any waste. We are very far to do something similar, still tied to the dear-old “heat, beat ant treat” method. When we want to produce something we introduce a lot of heat and pressure in the system and usually, produce toxic substances like by-product.

When we have a problem, it doesn't matter if it is a structural or biological one, for sure Nature has already solved it, because it has a very long experience: 3,8 billion of years of attemps and refinement in design and adaptation. Now we are starting to study and, in some cases, understand some natural processes and the lens of Biomimicry is helping us in this venture.

One of the most famous biomimetic invention was the airplane. The Wright brothers, inspired from the quiet flight of vultures, finally succeeded in their first historic flight in 1903. In 1914 we were dropping bombs from the sky. Nature has solutions, but we have a lot to learn."

And here is the lecture's video by LdM News Channel.

Carlo Santulli is professor of "Materials, science and technology" in the School of Architecture and Design of the University of Camerino and a material scientist.

He has a strong interest in sustainable materials and biomimetics and among several publications and papers, he is the author of the book “Biomimetic, the lesson of the nature”, which is one of the few publication about this theme in Italy where, we have to say, Biomimicry is not really know.