‘How to design a system inspired by nature?’ is the central question in the course Integrative Bio-Inspired Design. Turning to nature for answers is a great research approach, although it is harder than it looks. Even though students have learned about systems design in the first year course Bioinspiration & Value Creation, designing a concept yourself comes with a lot of challenges. Cellular processes cannot always be easily converted to human-scale innovations, and the concept that you create should be better than the system that’s already out there.

System design
Luckily, this course provides many useful lectures and workshops that guide students through the process of bio-inspired design. Besides lecturers from our own Bio-Inspired Innovation programme, teachers from  the Technical University (TU) Delft are also involved. They help students to not only look at their system from a biology perspective, but also from a technical and designer perspective. In addition, students are given a real-life designcase to become familiar with clients and stakeholder involvement. At the end of the course, the different designs are presented to the client, other students and teachers. The ultimate goal: inspiring the client with sustainable bio-inspired designs and a change of seeing your design come to life. Taken together, the course really challenges students to think outside of the box and is a great introduction to the world of system design.