Getting to the Serengeti is not easy. From Nairobi, the journey takes several days, crossing the border into Tanzania before heading west. Even after reaching the Serengeti and Ngorongoro conservation areas, there is still a long drive ahead, down a dusty road into the heart of the park. Tanzanians call this stretch the "African massage." You feel every bump.

Sharks are beautiful, streamlined animals, and their skin appears to be smooth to the touch. They seem perfectly designed for moving through water.

This summer, we've had the opportunity to explore everyday life in Africa through visits to family homesteads, local crafters, and small businesses. One especially memorable stop was a visit with a Kenyan woman named Jen, who lives in a farming village near Lake Nakuru.

When we think about vision, we picture eyes. Whether it's a human eye, the compound eyes of an insect, or the large eyes of an owl, we tend to assume that seeing requires a dedicated organ.

Summer is here, and as temperatures rise, so does our reliance on air conditioning. Cooling our homes, schools, and workplaces accounts for a significant share of global energy use. But what if the answer to better ventilation wasn't a more powerful machine? What if it began with looking underground?

Some of nature's most successful organisms don't thrive because they're the biggest, strongest, or fastest. They thrive because they are attuned - attuned to the conditions around them, to the resources available, and to the relationships that make life possible.

For those of us exploring biomimicry and life-centered design, this may be one of the most important invitations Robin offers. Nature is not only a source of ideas, strategies, and inspiration; it is also a relationship.

When Communities Use Local Waste to Create Iconic Art

We are so grateful to feature our dear friend, Ximena Rozo, in this conversation. Thank you, Ximena, for taking the time to share with us your thoughts, creative practice, and your beautiful, life-centered approach to design.

For years, the work of Zaha Hadid has inspired admiration. Her fearless rejection of the orthogonal grid, her fluid forms that seem to defy gravity, and her insistence that architecture could capture the dynamism of natural forces all resonate with a deep fascination for nature’s patterns and organic geometries.

The essence of integrating the unexpected is the ability to recognize value in unintended results and pivot toward new opportunities.

Meet the yellow pitcher plant (Sarracenia), a carnivorous plant that has evolved a surprisingly sophisticated way to trap insects using slippery surfaces and carefully engineered textures.

How burrs in the dog’s fur inspired a new, sticky closure for clothing. A classic biomimicry story that shows how a simple moment of curiosity - watching a plant do what it naturally does - can lead to one of the most widely used design innovations in the world.

In nature, the most successful systems don't choose between development and growth, they pursue both simultaneously.

The practice of learning from nature’s designs dates back centuries; Leonardo Da Vinci, Frank Lloyd Wright, Frei Otto, and Buckminster Fuller.

The humpback whale’s flippers provided insights into wind turbine design.

Meet the Namib beetle (Onymacris unguicularis), a small, shiny-backed insect that evolved to collect water on its back, in the middle of the night, when the fog rolls in from the ocean. 

When discussing biomimicry, it makes sense to first review what biophilia is and maybe compare the two.

Survival in nature and in design requires evolution. The most successful organisms and products share a common trait: they adapt, learn from what works, embrace the unexpected, and exchange information with their environment.

As Japan’s high-speed Shinkansen trains became faster, engineers encountered an unexpected problem. When trains exited tunnels, they produced a loud noise known as the “tunnel boom,” caused by sudden changes in air pressure.