First step to combine bio-inspiration and frugal innovation: Application to a container’s village

Abstract

In a world where raw materials are becoming scarcer, it appears necessary to adjust our way of developing new products. Indeed, the fundamental question of products’ sustainability, resources’ origin, and environmental impact is more and more important for customers. Moreover, the issue of equitable access to basic products is growing in poor countries. In this climate, frugal innovation was born. With this thematic in mind, we wanted to go deeper, and we found it very appropriate to start our design process by inspiring us from nature. After a short state of the art, we compared bio-inspiration and frugal design in order to build a design method combining these two approaches. This article relates to our current study and presents the first results of our work.