Living Systems - Design Challenges and Methods
In this 2 hour session we will discuss design and innovation in the context of complex living systems.
Considering challenges for design posed by living systems, we will discuss approaches to enhanced design practice and explore an example framework for evaluating buildings as living systems: The Living Building Challenge posed by the International Living Futures Institute.
Biomimicry will be further detailed as a method integral to the Living Building Challenge and applicable to engineering innovation. An example from sustainable architectural design will be presented.
In practice, another challenge is communicating complex information. This is particularly true for work that intentionally includes living systems. An evaluation process for integrated design approaches and its use for catalyzing new ideas will be demonstrated.
Randall Anway, AIA
Principal, New Tapestry, LLC
Randall Anway, AIA is a Registered Architect in New York and Connecticut. He specializes in design research inspired by natural patterns and systems. He holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut. A Certified Biomimicry Specialist since 2011, he offers research and educational design consulting through his Connecticut firm, New Tapestry, LLC (www.new-tapestry.com).
Denise DeLuca, PE
Co-Founder and Director, BCI: Biomimicry for Creative Innovation
Denise is an author, speaker, educator, and consultant whose career includes years of environmental consulting before taking on the role of Outreach Director during the formative years of The Biomimicry Institute. While living in Europe, Denise was Project Lead for Swedish Biomimetics 3000 and co-founded BCI: Biomimicry for Creative Innovation. Denise is currently working with BCI, teaching online courses in Creative Leadership and Biomimetic Design as part of the Master of Arts in Sustainable Design program at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and is interim Education Manager at the International Living Future Institute. Inspired by Nature, Denise relentlessly strives to ignite the curiosity and creativity of individuals and organizations to foster a more vibrant and sustainable world. Denise is author of Re-Aligning with Nature: Ecological Thinking for Radical Transformation.
Shannon Reece
Sr. Designer, Four One Group
Shannon Reece is a graduate from the Master of Arts in Sustainable Design program at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. For most of his career he has been an exhibit and brand environments designer. Along the way he took a break from his traditional design work and went with his family to live and work among rural farmers in Zambia, Africa, in a bush camp that they built for themselves along the bank of the Zambezi River. Three years later he returned to the U.S. and the design profession. The desire to combine his industrial design skills with real-world appropriate technology experience in Africa drove him to return to school for a degree in sustainable design. Shannon currently works out of his home in Hannibal, Missouri, as senior designer for The Four One Group in Orlando, Florida but is also busy building an independent design consultancy, Mud Hut Lab, with the goal of advancing sustainable practice within the combined industries of exhibit design and tourism.