Biomimicry, Bionic, Biodesign, Biophilia and biobased design are different design strategies for innovations with the intelligence of nature as a source of inspiration. We use these design strategies to develop new applications of materials, designs and processes. One of the first examples in history is Leonardo da Vinci. He imitated birds and made a design for a flying machine that later became the basis for the helicopter.

With biomimicry and bionic, the emphasis is on imitating nature. With 3.85 billion years of experience, nature is the largest inventor of sustainable solutions that are energy and material efficient without creating waste.

Biodesign is the use of living organisms such as bacteria or plants when designing products.

Bionic is the study of mechanical systems that function as living organisms or parts of living organisms. The term bionic is derived from the contraction of the Greek word bios “life” and Tecnica “technology”, so literally “life technology”.

Biomimicry is learning and then mimicking natural forms, processes and ecosystems to create more sustainable designs. At biomimicry we do not look at what we can extract from nature, but what we can learn from it. The term biomimicry is derived from the contraction of the Greek words bios “life” and mimesis “imitate”, so literally “imitate life”.

Biophilia is an emerging field that focuses on addressing our psychological needs to be around nature. Exposure to images of nature can help with healing, restore recovery time, stimulate positive feelings and reduce negative feelings. Biophilic design is a sustainable design strategy in which people are reconnected with the natural environmental factors.

Biobased materials are materials that mainly consist of natural organic raw materials. Biobased science is in many ways involved in the transition to the biobased economy. That transition is not easy because fossil raw materials cannot simply be exchanged for biomass as a raw material. The art of producing biobased products is to find the optimum process for each end product, which simultaneously ends in a circular process.