First approach to biomimicry

For the second day of the course we had programmed a trip to a carpet factory called InterFace FLOR. Since this factory is extremely linked to biomimicry, it was vital for us to receive some basic knowledge on this subject, so our professor Jako Appleman came to our hotel and gave us a short lecture about this issue.

The essence of biomimicry is to understand how nature manages to solve certain problems, and try to apply these principles to solve human technical problems.
For which problems can we find solutions in nature? For example, all those concerning sustainability: the planet provide us a certain natural resources that we are able to use to human benefit, but as world population grows, the way we take advantage of these resources might not be enough. To face this situation we can take a new approach: there is no waste, only food. We must be able to use and reuse as much natural resources as possible. Technology is making this easier and every day we move towards more efficient an ecological ways of producing and consuming energy and primary materials. However, if we look to nature we might find behaviors and processes that can surprise us and give us new options to achieve our goals.