Biognosis – from the Greeek bios, living and gnosis, insight – is a rare synonyme for developing solutions by looking at nature.
Using the KAWA method by Vera F. Birkenbihl, the expression offers additional keywords: biology, innovation, occasion, design, nature, open-mindedness, system, information, structure.
The History
The art of learning from nature is not a new one. Just think of Leonardo da Vinci, or Viktor Schauberger. However it is becoming more and more feasible to do so. Some things we simply could not see, detect or measure before – thanks to nanotechnology, that’s getting easier. Observations of vigilant people can now be substantiated scientificly.
Lotos Surface (c) William Thielicke
And because of technologies like 3D printing, we can mimic nature more easily – because what’s butter in French cuisine, structure is in nature. It is everywhere, and it is most effective. Instead of right angles, it’s about π, hexagons and helixes.
Applications
You can and will find the approach in many different subject areas – energy technology, product design, circular economy … the list is very long, which is quite encouraging. Just look up one of the synonyms – like biomimicry – and you will find research findings as well as application examples.
BTW, the » Biognosis Tools are a creative problem-solving application. It’s about generating ideas, based on biological knowledge.