biomimetics
and biomimicry
design
Our Mission
With the biomimicry and biomimetics, we are exploring the incredible characteristics, properties, and structures that make wood a design marvel.
Our mission is to harness the genius of nature and apply it to real-world challenges in furniture design and housing. We’re taking a closer look at wood’s unique attributes, from its cellular structure to its remarkable water transport, strength and flexibility. We’re using that knowledge to design innovative products and structures that mimic wood’s natural wonders.
It’s a journey that blends the best of nature’s efficiency with human ingenuity, resulting in solutions that are both functional and beautifully designed. Join us as we embark on this exciting adventure, where science meets art to shape the future of furniture and housing inspired by wood in a completely new form. Welcome to BioWdesign!
About
BioWdesign is an ongoing interdisciplinary research project in the field of design.
It refers to the concept of emulating the natural characteristics, properties, and structures found in wood and living trees through biomimicry and biomimetics. The design is drawing inspiration from nature to solve human functional and design challenges in area of furniture design and housing. In this context, it implies studying the unique features of wood, such as its cellular structure, water transport, strength, flexibility, and other properties.
We use that knowledge to design and create products and structures that mimic or replicate those properties. It’s a way of harnessing the efficiency and effectiveness of natural designs and applying them to innovative and sustainable human-made solutions for future.
Design Principles Inspired by Wood
Bioinspiration, specifically through methods of Biomimetics and Biomimicry, offers a promising strategy for innovative, sustainable, and hybrid design thinking.
By emulating nature’s mechanisms and functions, we can create a new generation of products with unique properties. In this context, we focus on ligno-cellulosic organisms like trees and wood as an anisotropic material which exhibit very unique responses to stimuli due to their specific structure.
This methods can lead to designs with fascinating properties such as resilience to pressure and tension, motion control, and water or light diffusion. Coupled with advances in parametric design, computer-aided production, and additive manufacturing, we have explored the application potential of such innovations in furniture design and housing through models and design concepts.
BioWDesign Gallery 2024
We present the initial outcomes of the project at the intersection of art and science.
Our intention is to showcase the results of the scientific phase of the project in a creative manner. Our outputs consist of biomimetic models. These prototypes exhibit fascinating features. They are beautiful, possess remarkable properties, and, at first glance, appear as organic artifacts to designers. We sought a way to bring their future applications closer to designers and the public, and we chose a unique approach. You will become acquainted with our models through a distinctive scene.
We have selected iconic pieces – legends of 20th-century furniture design. They will come to life in the BIOWDESIGN GALLERY 2024 in a transformed, visionary art form. We intend to pay homage to renowned designers and the era in which these iconic pieces were created. Through their historical creations, we will provide a glimpse of a path for the future.
Browse our designs
Our goal is to draw attention to biomimetic models integrated as functional components of iconic products.
The new possibilities of bio-inspired design, with unique biomimetic details, will be presented. These details will imbue these products with innovative functional, environmental, and visual qualities. Visitors will experience abilities such as light diffusion, structural integrity, resilience, flexibility, passive movement, and water transfer within our exhibitions. Through user experience and emotions, we aim to highlight the necessity of changing how we approach sustainable innovation in living spaces.
Drawing inspiration from nature and combining it with the current exponential development in science and technology will enable us to design products in the near future that seamlessly integrate into our interiors, much like organisms in nature. Thanks to their features and functions, products like these will actively improve the quality of the environment, create a positive psychological response in users, and contribute to shaping a new concept of aesthetics for sustainable products in the 21st century.
Our Team
Project Author
Assoc. prof. Ing. Zuzana Tončíková, Art.D
Design Team
Assoc. prof. Ing. Zuzana Tončíková, Art.D
Prof. Mgr. Art. Marian Ihring, Art.D
Assoc. Prof. René Baďura
Assoc. prof. Ing. Anton Stolár, Art.D
Assoc. prof. Ing. Miroslav Chovan, ArtD.
Mgr. Elena Farkašová, Art.D
Dipl. Ing. Roman Nôta, PhD.
Mgr. Art. Lucia Kružlicová-Spišiaková, Art.D
Mgr.Art. Júlia Kaštierová, ArtD.
Mgr. Art. Ľuboš Gajdoš, Art.D
Wood Science Team
Assoc. Prof. Rastislav Lagaňa, Phd. et PhD.
Assoc. prof. Miroslava Mamoňová, PhD.
Biologists
Prof. Mgr. Jaroslav Ďurkovič, PhD.
Mgr. Ján Kováč, PhD.
Makers – I2 Industrial Innovations
Martin Kováčik
Jakub Kukučka
Partners
Contact
Department of Furniture and Interior Design
Faculty of Wood Sciences and Technology
Technical University in Zvolen
T. G. Masaryka 24
960 01 Zvolen
Slovakia