The Biomimicry Professional Certificate cohort of 15 students and three instructors just got back from an incredible week of work in the Kansas Flint Hills. They were hosted on a 7,000-acre sustainably managed ranch, the Flying W Ranch. During the week, guests from BNIM Architects, including Bob Berkebile and Laura Lesniewski, joined the group for a day at the Land Institute as guests of Dr. Wes Jackson. Dr. Dayna Baumeister, lead instructor and creator of the program, marveled at the experience:
“The prairie was really in its full glory and so beautifully demonstrated the theme of the week, expressed in two statements: ‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts’ and ‘since Life can't exist without context, shouldn't context be part of what we call Life?’ The prairie was a month early—which isn't good on the global warming front, but admittedly was awesome on the teaching/experiencing front! Flowers abloom, grass seed heads 20-plus inches high, grasshoppers, beetles, lightning bugs, butterflies, moths, legumes, sunflowers and more ... and I've only described the first square meter! We were all impressed, and as I walked the prairie the feeling of belonging to the planet was incredibly strong. To be supported as part of Life was a really wonderful feeling.”Phaedra Svec of the BNIM team resonated with similar thoughts: “We invested a small amount of fees to find biomimicry innovations for one of our built environment projects in the early design phases. The process of turning our design challenges into abstract and biological questions of function and then finding natural models to inspire innovations did help the project team to see our challenges as opportunities. The real gift, however, was the total immersion of the team for a day and night in the genius of the vanishing tall grass prairie ecosystem. It only took one day and night, to remember a bone-deep connection that will likely change the way we work in this life shed forever.”
Phaedra also found great value in Biomimicry 3.8 and the essential biomimetic approach to our work. “While Biomimicry 3.8 is offering a curriculum about how to consciously emulate nature’s genius, as a byproduct they also demonstrate a unique approach to interdisciplinary collaboration that is worth as much as the curriculum.”
Dayna also reflected that, “Over the course of the week, the students demonstrated that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts as they continue to gel as a super-organism. They have an amazing relationship with each other, as if they are organisms in an ecosystem, each with its own contributing function and niche.”
As part of the program, participants form interdisciplinary teams to tackle a biomimetic design challenge as a long-term practicum project. Exciting developments on each of the practicums occurred during the trip to the prairie. READ MORE >>
via Biomimicry 3.8
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