How would a butterfly ...

Announced at Bioneers 2008, the Biomimicry Institute is launching later next month an incredible website that will serve to spark imagination and innovation in the field of biomimicry - AskNature.org.

And you can be part of its creation. Read on to find out how.

The Biomimicry Institute is doing some incredible things for revolutionizing the way we go about solving problems and creating products. From offering degrees, to working with businesses like Interface to improve the eco-friendliness of their products and manufacturing processes, the institute is at the forefront of a coming tidal wave of biomimetic popularity.

To facilitate the questions and answers that will come with the change to looking at nature for better ideas, the Biomimicry Institute has created AskNature.org:

"The world's first interactive database of Nature's solutions to sustainability challenges, where relevant biological information is searchable by design and engineering function"

Designers, planners, engineers, or any one involved in creating the world as we see it can have an online resource helping them quickly find the animals, plants and occurrences in nature that offer solutions.

It will be a pretty amazing resource for a pretty amazing emerging field of science and sustainability.

Rotational Molding machine for shoes

via williamsondesign

For Marloes Ten Bhömer

This machine was designed to mold footwear for Marloes Ten Bhömer. The movement of the machine is based on industrial rotational molding machines but is achieved by a custom designed mechanism.

Exhibited at the Krannert Art Museum. 2009

Paul Clark's Birdhouse - Core 77 This Just In-box

via core77: 

Paul Clark's design is the result of a 'Waste Aware Project' with Gray's School of Art students undertake in their second year. The aim of the project is to give an otherwise considered waste product or material a second life by applying it to a different use.

Paul's design for a birdhouse utilises the core function of the plant pot (to aid the growth of a living organism) and applies it to a different context. (Paul Clark's blog)

Paul describes his approach as "I decided to take on the challenge of the humble garden plant pot because it is a mass produced item which contributes massively to the amount of waste materials that end up in landfill sites." 

The UK alone produces 500 million plant pots every year - it's no surprise that millions of these pots end up in landfill sites around the country. As they are made from plastic - they remain in landfills for hundreds of years.

The project is run jointly between Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen, Scotland & Creative Waste Exchange, a local waste redistribution initiative housing stock materials and products donated by businesses and householders which would otherwise have gone to landfill.