How to live in New York City and still be inspired by nature

After living in a small apartment in a large city for a long time, I've come face-to-face with my need for outdoor enjoyment. I travel hours and hours to 'get away' to walk through the woods near where I grew up or visit the beach. For people who need a significant amount of time in natural places, New York City is probably not ideal. But for me and many others, it's ideal in every other way...

While tackling this paradox, I came across an article by the great designer Joe Duffy on Fastcompany.com. The article continues a thread I've seen from a few designers lately (Janine Benyus, Ross Lovegrove) on taking cues from nature to inform the best design. Duffy explains that nature is the heart and soul of everything he does, and spending time connecting with the outdoors can provide divine inspiration. He suggests checking out the work of an incredible artist and naturalist from England, Andy Goldsworthy - which I did! Check out this video that just made me feel so relaxed. Definitely recommended for anyone having nature-withdrawals.


Andy Goldsworthy

I might get the DVD and watch it whenever I need to chill!! Side note - this topic reminds me of the new medals designed for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. I think they're pretty and very unique - they look enormous though! The designs are based on Orca whales and ravens from aboriginal artwork, and the metal is shaped into waves to represent the Canadian natural landscape. See the whole story here. Also an interesting fact about the medals: they are made from nearly 1% recycled electronics (cell phones and computers). Amazing idea! Wonder why they couldn't use more?

Imagine Designing Spring

Janine Banyus is a pioneer in the field of biomimicry, and in her most recent talk on TED she calls on designers and innovators to ask 'how does nature do this?' when working on an invention or design solution. She points out that every organism in nature uses their resources and tools efficiently in order to coexist peacefully on the planet, and it would benefit humans to learn how to live this way.

Banyus' new website Ask Nature, will eventually be a comprehensive database of nature-inspired solutions that hopefully will be a primary resource for designers in every field. She asks, 'imagine designing spring?'... the incredible orchestration of every change in form and color throughout the world could be the greatest and most efficient design solutions ever! Given the visual from Dr. Adam Neiman below, she asks how did the relatively small amounts of air and water on the planet create conditions conducive to life?

Dr. Adam Neiman visual - the ball on the left represents the total amount of water on the Earth's surface compared to the entire mass of Earth. The ball on the right represents the amount of air in the Earth's atmosphere.

There are many ways to let nature inspire innovative thinking in design. For example, a cement-making company mimics the natural world by using CO2 as a component in creating their product, instead of expelling the byproduct of cement production into the air... An Amazon eel creates a 600 Volt electric charge only using the chemicals in it's body (these are the same chemicals found in a human body!)... A wind turbine manufacturer was inspired by the scalloped edges of humpback whale's fins to inspire a technology that reduces drag by 32%, thus increasing the amount of energy harvested.

Through her work at the Biomimicry Institute, Banyus is confident that with the help of our 'elders' we will learn to live on this Earth, which is 'ours but not ours alone'.

Organic Design

SolidThinking is a new achitectural design software that allows designers to scan a basic sketch in and create a nature-inspired design using the morphogenesis tool. In this New York Times blog post, they mention that this gives designers a valuable automated tool. The software creates curves and organic shapes where there were none before, and the architect can use these shapes as inspiration for their final vision.

Gaudi's House, Barcelona

Doesn't this concept remind you of the original work of architects like Gaudi or more recently Calatrava? For many years, designers have used the understanding of nature to create beautiful and efficient designs. It seems that this software simply tries to make an automated tool to replace the creative mind, but could potentially lead to more organic design in architecture. It allows the designer to envision the natural world in their work where they otherwise may not see it.