The Biomimicry Design Process: Characteristics, Stages and Main Challenge

Abstract

This chapter describes the characteristics of the biomimicry design process, its stages, and main challenge. The biomimicry design process is bidirectional, analogical based and interdisciplinary. We present in details the various design stages for both design directions: from a problem to biology and from biology to an application. We mainly elaborate on the three core stages: organism retrieval, abstraction, and transfer. We compare these stages to similar design models in the literature and suggest an appealing way to follow them: the synapse biomimetic design models. We conclude with a discussion on the main challenge of the biomimetic design process: bridging the gap between biology and technology.