Biomimicry – Design That Sustains All Life

Prashant Dhawan is the co-founder of Biomimicry India Lab and Studio as well as the Biomimicry India Network. Biomimicry India has been and is actively involved in spreading the knowledge of biomimicry and has organised and conducted biomimicry talks, workshops and courses at various schools, colleges, corporate offices and conferences as well as ‘open to all’ talks and workshops across India. Prashant prefers to see himself as an amateur researcher of ‘sustainable happiness’.

- Sharmila Chakravorty

As designers, we are all in a race to manifest our ideas of utopias – the ideal building, the ideal home, the ideal office space, the ideal city, etc. For instance, we are increasingly thinking of Smart Cities and how we can create these across the world because clearly, our current formats have failed us. But how do we ensure that our designs are fool-proof? We have been repeatedly causing damage to our planet with unintended consequences of our designs in the past – climate change, biodiversity depletion, environmental pollution, endemic poverty, water and resource scarcity, waste, chronic addiction, etc. So, to perfect our designs, our technology, our systems, and our lives, where do we look for inspiration? Prashant Dhawan, the founder of Biomimicry India, points us in the direction of a billions-of years-old system that works flawlessly. There is zero waste, zero pollution, and almost zero ill-effects of this system. It is self-sufficient, constantly evolving, and yet at perfect harmony with the multiple sub-systems within it. Nature. But how do we translate processes that work flawlessly in nature into usable solutions for our problems? By training ourselves to demystify these processes, and treating them as ‘advanced technologies’.