The Commercial Real Estate Revolution

Who is Janine Benyus? She is the champion for a discipline called BioMimicry. The premise is simple. We can learn from biology how to adapt and optimize within a particular environment or context.

BioMimicry is not the use of biology to accomplish something like using a particular algae to break down oil spills. That is call bio-assisted design.

BioMimicry takes inspiration from biology to design better solution. Janine shares in a video below how she helped a group of engineers learn from oysters how to prevent calcium build up in drainage pipes.

Lucchesi Galati is a member of Mindshift and a firm that practices biomimicry when developing design solutions. The Desert Living Center in Las Vegas provides a great example of how they used these insights into a design theme that succeeded in bringing diverse interest groups together producing an award winning facility.

Mindshift is a collaborative effort designed to provide a platform for innovation. Ray Lucchesi introduced Mindshift to the idea of champion adapters. In nature champion adapters are the innovators of the natural world. We looked for champion adapters within our industry as inspiration for our own efforts. Many of their stories are told in the book coming out this week.

Here are some questions the Biomimicry Institute offers when searching for innovation from champion adapters:

“Look for the champions in nature who answer/resolve your challenges

• Find the best Natural Models to answer your questions.
• Consider Literal and Metaphorical
• Find champion adapters by asking “whose survival depends on this?”
• Find organisms that are most challenged by the problem you are trying to solve, but are unfazed by it.
• Look to the extremes of the habitat
• Turn the problem inside out and on its head
• Open discussions with Biologists and specialists in the field”

Janine explains that one of our key challenges is not the lack of right information but instead a lack of integration. The same holds true for project delivery. Our waste in designing and delivery buildings does not come for a lack of expertise, but a lack of integration. We discovered that the more integration a project reflected the improved coordination could be traced to a foundation of transparency and trust.

Janine Benyus also makes the distinction between learning about nature versus learning from the natural world. This distinction applies directly to many of our efforts toward sustainability. We have, for the most part, learned techniques for providing more energy efficient buildings. We are making progress but Ms. Benyus would likely point out that learning to think sustainably is the higher goal.