We work closely with our Biomimicry Affiliate Program (BAP) institutions as they prepare to offer their students the opportunity to graduate with a minor in biomimicry. We expect our first three Affiliate universities - Arizona State University, Ontario College of Art & Design, and Universidad Iberoamericana - to become models for the dozens of others that have contacted us as the demand for biomimicry education increases. One of the requirements to become an Affiliate is that each institution must have at least two Biomimicry Fellows, champions of biomimicry who have been trained in biomimicry and design. Details on how biomimicry is being incorporated into each of our Affiliate institutions are below.

2009-2010 Biomimicry Affiliate Institutions

Arizona State University (ASU) - Tempe, AZ
ASU is the largest public research university in the United States, and ASU President Michael Crow is committed to incorporating biomimicry into courses and programs throughout the campus. Biomimicry Fellows Heidi Fischer and Adrian Smith have been instrumental in integrating biomimicry into InnovationSpace, an entrepreneurial joint venture among the College of Design, Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, and W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU. innovationSpace is a two-semester program that teams up upper-division majors from business, engineering, industrial design, and visual communication design to develop new product ideas. In fall 2008, the program undertook a major initiative to introduce biomimicry concepts into its curriculum. Adrian, a Ph.D. candidate in biology, serves as the teaching assistant for the program, essentially helping bring biology to the students' design table. Adrian is also helping organize a biomimicry symposium to be held at ASU in February 2010 entitled Social Biomimicry: Insect Societies and Human Design.

Prasad Boradkar, ASU faculty member and Director of InnovationSpace, and Janine Benyus are featured in a news piece on sustainable design that aired on Horizon, a program on Tempe's local public TV station, in November 2009.
 

Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) - Toronto, Canada
OCAD has more depth and breadth in visual arts and design programs than any school of its kind in Canada and offers its students a unique environment that combines studio-based learning with critical inquiry. Biomimicry Fellows Carl Hastrich and Bruce Hinds have been incorporating biological inspiration into their design courses since before The Biomimicry Institute came into existance in 2006. Currently, Carl and Bruce teach two biomimicry courses within the Environmental Design Major: Biomimicry 1: Points of Departure and Biomimicry 2: Application.

Bruce and Carl were featured recently in a Biomimicry story on 16:9, a Canadian news program which airs on Global News.

Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) - Mexico City, Mexico
Since it was founded in 1955, the Department of Architecture and Urbanism at the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) Mexico City Campus has been cutting edge as an architectural design school in Mexico. During the past six years, ecological design has become a fundamental aspect of good and innovative design. Since 2005, biomimicry has been included in different levels and courses. Today it is the closing subject for two four-month diploma courses (Sustainable Design & Construction and Sustainable Communities Design). In summer the UIA holds a nine-day Biomimicry & Design Workshop led by The Biomimicry Institute, and participants learn directly from 10 different Mexican ecosystems.

At the Undergraduate Program, the department has 12 professors trained in biomimicry. Of those, two are Biologists at the Design Table trained by the Biomimicry Guild. The program offers one unique elective course in Biomimicry, and biomimicry is included in different ways in almost all semesters of the core elective cycles - construction, design studio, and environmental design. Architect Raúl de Villafranca and Biologists Delfín Montañana and Júan Rovalo lead architecture courses with biomimicry, the most cutting edge offerings within the program in Ecological Design. UIA also is active at other universities in Mexico and across Latin America.

Raúl de Villafranca and Delfín Montañana are the Biomimicry Fellows at UIA.

If you are a Spanish speaker, read more on biomimicry and UIA's involvement in this CNN Expansion article, Manufactura 'al natural'.