As production tools become digitized, the complexity of forms that can be produced is drastically increasing. With this increase in ability many designs which would remain as sketches because they could never be built are being realized.
One large and interesting category of inspiration for some of these new forms is structures found around us in nature.
The act of drawing inspiration from nature is not something new with Digital Manufacturing but has existed much longer. Some of the modern terms for drawing inspiration from nature include Biomimetics; Biomimicry; Bionics which was researched by a Carleton Graduate student as part of her MDes Thesis. More information on this area can be found on Alena’s site http://biologytodesign.wordpress.com/
Following are links to related projects around the world…
“This web-like pavilion was inspired by a lobster and built by a robot” Wired Magazine
http://web.media.mit.edu/~neri/site/projects/projects.html
