In "Biomimicry versus Humanism", the author takes a negative and foreboding stance against Biomimicry. The author, Joe Kaplinsky, is a science writer. Joe is arguing for Humanism and an embracing of the potential of human design instead of as he puts it in another article, "lazy design" which pulls directly from biological ideas.
The author brings up a number of interesting points:
1. Architects are being positioned through the use of CAD to generate form, and become strangers to the performance and practicalities of the construction of said form.
2. Biological studies have opened up possibilities in structural design.
3. Biomimicry devalues human design and idolises natural process, which may not be the best way of approaching a design problem.
4: Evolution within humanity is culturally based in the inovations of technology and science, compared to that of relativly rapid ecological evolution with in nature.
5: Human artifacts are made, living things are grown.
6: Enviromentally sensitive building does not mean nessesarly mean antisocial or autarchic but could mean low-maintenance. We assume that natural designs are better because we are using nature as the norm. Even in nature there are variations in what the norm is.
7: In the past most biological references had been anthropomophic.
Currently the biological references within architecture seem to be leaning away from anthropomophic representation to biomorphic representation. Biomorphic is anything that seems to suggest forms within living organisms, not just human beings. Kapinsky's ideas about humanism seem to be outdated. He even makes reference to the ideals of the enlightenment. Humanism is not a bad way of thinkin, and in some respects we are still humanistically adopting biomimicry. Biomimicry has more possibilities for further exploration if it were combined with other methods of design. Biomimicry is not lazy design as long as it is used correctly. Biomophic design serves very little purpose in the long run other than to place 'organic' form in situations that do not usually call for it. But instead if we take the leasons of nature and adapt them further we can see that there may be some virtue to the way things work in nature.
Form adopted from nature without reason is inadequate.
"Biomimicry versus Humanism"
Joe Kaplinsky
Architectural Design
2008
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1 comment:
I don't understand how biomimicry can be a "lazy" design. Age-old habits of placing humans at the center of the universe make it so hard for us to actually learn from nature. It takes creativity and keen observation to play by nature's rules.
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