What's So Special About Natural Design?

You might alternately ask, "why is there a picture of breakfast on Techri-La?" But if you'll let me self-indulge for a bit, today's post begins with the image of an egg because I find it to be one of the most beautiful and inspiring forms in the world: simple and elegant, and distinctly feminine. It's also a great introduction to today's topic of biomimicry.

In a not-so-recent TED Talk, Janine Benyus calls biomimicry "the conscious emulation of life's genius." The term is typically used in engineering and design, confirming what most of us already know--natural forms seem to be better than synthetic forms. You'll often find biomimicry paired with sustainable design, the idea being that we can somehow harness the intelligence already programmed into the natural world. The egg, for example, inspired someone to create a luxury bed in its likeness, complete with light and sound therapy. One of the more interesting examples of biomimicry that I've run across lately is in these solar-powered street lamps. It makes sense that if you want to collect light in a solar array, you might want to arrange your array in a pattern similar to plants, since they've been collecting light for millions of years.

My question today is this: if design elements inspired by nature are somehow intrinsically better than those in the synthetic realm, why don't we see more designs emulating nature?