Biomimicry has been one of those buzz words in the architecture community for a while now. There are many different products on the market and also many buildings that claim to have been inspired by nature in some way, but I haven’t seen very many people using the concept on a larger, regional scale. This video is a short presentation by Michael Pawlyn about several concepts from nature that can be applied to architecture that could transform how our work impacts the environment. Pretty audacious, I know.  He tells an interesting story about a beetle in the desert who comes out at night in order to create condensation on its back.  The beetle’s shell is shaped so that it can pour the condensation directly into it’s mouth in the morning for a drink of life-sustaining water.  The beetle’s resourcefulness can be applied architecturally to help reverse desertification in Africa and other parts of the world.

The video is from the TED website, where they have a collection of short presentations about all kinds of interesting topics that are worth checking out. TED is a nonprofit that does conferences and other activities and, in their own words, they are “devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading”

[ted id=1072]