Let
us go back to the beginning of human civilisation.
We took inspiration from our environment: from
emulating the use of lever mechanism in joints for
mobilising heavy objects, to mimicking protective
colouring for camouflage. Nature presents many effective
solutions to our practical problems.
Coming into the 21 st century, resource
depletion and environmental
degradation becomes the biggest
challenge of our generation. Using
materials in the most economical way is
the core of sustainable management.
Photo By Ryan Chan
Taken in Vancouver
Life on earth has been through over 3.8 billion
years of Research & Development, and only
organisms with the most optimised morphology
can survive the turbulence of climate and the
competition of natural selection. Evolution acts
as the main driver of the development of
strategies in response to these changes.
Variations between individual organisms results
from random mutations, and through the test of
time, features and mechanisms that maximise
energy efficiency and utilises locally available
materials replace ones that rely on rare or nonrenewable
resources and result in nonbiodegradable
wastes. “In other words, [nature]
has selected for sustainability and functionality”
as Allison Bernett, a graduate student studying
architecture in Cornell University, with a
background in biology, has put it. [1]