TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. The subject matter of biomimetics is known by several names: bionics, biogenesis, biomimicry, and others. This chapter draws on Ed van Hinte s reports of the Smart Materials and Systems seminars organized in 1997 and 1998 at the Netherlands Design Institute, with the help of Julian Vincent. Vincent, who leads the Centre for Biomimetic and Natural Technologies at Bath University in the United Kingdom, says the concept describes taking ideas from nature and implementing them in another technology such as engineering, design, computing, etc. The concept is very old (the Chinese wanted to make artificial silk 3,000 years ago; Democritus (460 370 BCE) also said it was absurd for men to vaunt their superiority over the animals when, in matters of great importance, it was they who were our teachers: the spider for weaving and mending; the swallow for architecture; the swan and the nightingale for singing. (The last animal is recounted in Bruce Chatwin s book The Songlines.) But the implementation is gathering momentum only recently because the science base can cope with the advanced techniques and our civilization is in ever increasing need of sympathetic technology. Centre for Biomimetics, What Is Biomimetics? available on the Centre s website at http://www.bath.ac.uk/mech-eng//biomimetics/about.htm.
2. Janine Benyus, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (New York: Morrow, 1997), chap. 1.
3. Ibid.
4. Paola Antonelli, Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1995).
5. Ezio Manzini, The Material of Invention (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT...
