Wild Design: Ecofriendly Innovations Inspired by Nature

(Paperback)

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Description

In Wild Design, environmental designer and scientist Alan Marshall presents a manifesto on nature-inspired designs, including visionary concepts as well as exhibits of actual products, landscapes, and artwork from around the world. With elegant photographs and drawings, the book incorporates the ethos of sustainability by documenting many of the results of the Ecomimicry Project, an international experiment in ecodesign that marries the skills of local artists and ecologists from Western Australia and the Carpathian mountains in Eastern Europe. All the designs treat nature as an inspiration for ecofriendly innovations. Among the fascinating possibilities- a bike helmet based on the crustacean exoskeleton, a heliotropic house, and a car fueled by algae. Marshall argues that design should be the responsibility of all, not just a technological elite, and it is in this spirit that he offers this timely, important book.

Reviews

Designer and scientist Marshall has collected compelling examples of eco-inspired designs, including a helmet shaped like a crustacean and an algae-fueled car. He also details results from the Ecomimicry Project, an environmental design project that bore ideas for sustainable landscapes, technologies, and artwork.
Business Week 20 Great Summer Reads

"[Alan Marshall's] Ecomimicry Project is a highly imaginative experiment in design demonstrating how the natural world may serve as inspiration for design ideas."
Alan Saunders, ABC Radio National, Australia

Its hard not to enjoy the attacks on nuclear power, gold, nanobots and politics[Wild Design carries] some serious, and sometimes quite stimulating and insightful ideas.
Artlink magazine

Author Bio

Dr. Alan Marshall is a research fellow at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia. He has researched and taught environmental studies at several European universities and research centers, including the Institute of Advanced Studies in Graz, Masaryk University in Czech Republic, Nizhni Novgorod State University in Russia, the University of Wollongong and Curtin University in Australia, Nirex UK in England, and Presov University in Slovakia. His research on environmental problems has taken him to the Transylvanian Alps, the Tasman Sea, the Danube and Volga Rivers, the Great Southern Ocean, the Black Sea coast, the industrial North of England, the rural fields of New Zealand, and even to the planet Mars (just in a conceptual way).