I had a chat today with an MBA student at Babson who is researching collaboration in biomimetic design. We discussed how different backgrounds, knowledge, methods and terminology can make communication across disciplines challenging. Based on other interviews, the student felt one of the strengths of biomimicry is that it can create sufficiently compelling situations so that participants will make the extra effort to create a 'language' common to all team members.

In the 'biology to design' pathway, the onus is largely on the biologist who is trying to develop a commercially viable application based on a biological discovery. The potential for collaboration challenges depends on the degree to which the biological discovery involves concepts and methods that are well understood and implementable by the partners.

On the surface, the situation is different in the 'design to biology' pathway, where the designer needs to articulate the problem in a way that a biologist can understand, interpret the solutions that the biologist finds and then figure out how to implement these solutions. The BaDT course is intended to help biologists think functionally and interact effectively with designers who are not experts in biology.

In some examples of biomimetic design, the designer starts with a specific problem but works with a biologist to develop a better understanding of the underlying problem. The biologist's knowledge of how natural systems work and components within these systems interact helps the team develop a new problem statement that may be easier to solve. The initial discussion in this pathway is likely to be less discipline-specific, building common ground amongst team members and facilitating ongoing collaboration.

I would be very interested in collecting specific examples of biomimicry applications and information about the collaboration process involved.

Mateos, have you seen different styles or types of collaboration on the various teams you have worked with, depending on the nature of the problem that the team was working on? I suspect that 'collaboration' covers a lot of different kinds of interactions, from asking for input to actively engaging in a 'back and forth' exchange of ideas.

For my graduation project at the Technical University in Delft, the Netherlands, I choose to apply biomimetic principles for developing a sustainable electric scooter. I do not have specific examples of successful collaboration, but I would like to share my experience so far in applying biomimicry in a product development process.

I adapted the process description I found on this website (biomimicry design spiral) to fit a product development process. It is focused on discovering and mimicking processes and working principles present in nature (observe and abstract). The working environment of an industrial design engineer however, has only limited time reserved for fundamental research. The phases “observe” and “abstract” will in reality be put together in a quick literature research with some expert interviews.
A the research stage designers could use input from biologists. I contacted biologists with design questions. I encountered two challenges:

1. Focus on research vs. focus on application
Biologists tend to focus on understanding principles in nature. Engineers want to apply them. This can generate friction in the communication between biologists and engineers: engineers seem to be walking away with the results of years of research and simply applying them, biologists seem to have no interest in the good intentions of the engineer who wants to create well functioning sustainable products. There is a perceived lack of common interest. I do think this common interest exists, only has to be made visible to both parties. The common interest would be supporting a sustainable living environment. Biologists and engineers need understand the significance of their both activities, and see the bigger picture of collaborating towards a sustainable society. Asknature.org is a good means of achieving this understanding.

2. Specific vs. non specific
In the idea and concept phase of a product development process, many different ideas are generated to solve design problems. It is a fuzzy process, and even the nature of the problem itself can be subject of constant change. At this stage, I invited biologists to brainstorm on solutions for design problems. The design problems however were to abstract and vague for the contacted biologists to be able to generate ideas from their deep and specific knowledge of nature. They preferred more specific questions, while non-specificity is in the core of a creative process. I’d invite biologists to try and apply specific ideas in new situations, and engineers to specify questions and contact biologist and the detailing phase of a design process.

Both parties have been opposed for a long time. Now that we start working on the same goal of supporting a sustainable living environment, this opposition is gone. Trust has to be gained at both sides that this common interest truly exists, and understanding has to be build of each other’s focal points in the process of building this sustainable living environment.

For now the biomimetic principles applied at this particular project have been taken from books, research articles, asknature.org (very helpful and rich source of information) and many discussions with whoever was interested in the subject. I will continue to seek contact with biologists for inspiration for design solutions.

I am trying to think clearly about "green taxes": how to systematically incent choices that lead to sustainability, or discourage choices that systematically lead away from sustainability. It occurs to me that Nature has lots of experience with patterns of choice-making for sustainability, and that it would be helpful to try re-framing the situation and preferred solutions in ways that Nature might. Who is willing to try to share some clear thinking?