How to Grow Your Architecture Career Through Biomimicry
“It’s expensive to fight nature.” The words of biomimicry expert and leading architect Jamie Miller are more true today than ever before. And the built environment is taking note.
Leading architects who study the way nature (not humans) manages resources, regulate temperature, or optimize structures, are applying these insights to create buildings that are both efficient and life-friendly.
Biomimicry, the practice of learning from nature and emulating its strategies, can advance architecture with tools to design buildings that are efficient, adaptive, and sustainable.
For architects and designers seeking to upskill their careers, biomimicry connects directly to the growing market for sustainability-centered careers.
Learning from Nature: Where to Seek Inspiration
Let’s look at some of nature’s genius ways of performing functions. Spider silk can absorb large amounts of pressure before breaking. In fact, gram for gram, it can be several times tougher than steel or Kevlar. Trees regulate temperature, and termite mounds are built for natural ventilation.
When applied to architecture, natural models can provide inspiration for innovative, sustainable designs, and can improve the built environment in several ways. The application of a genetic algorithm and topology optimization - like that of bones in skeletons, the growth of tree structures, etc. - can be used to determine the best placement of materials in buildings.
Living organisms tend to blend into their surroundings. This offers protection, and also saves energy. In the same way, human designs for the built environment can also harmonise with its environment instead of fighting it. This often leads to saving energy and reducing costs.
Patterns in nature, like the Fibonacci sequence, can be incorporated into designs that need to optimize for space and stability with minimum material.
Nature also offers various strategies for temperature regulation that can inform building designs, like elephant skin that is uniquely adapted for passive cooling.
By adopting these strategies, architects can address pressing sustainability challenges while bringing fresh, future-focused projects into their portfolios.
Leading Architects Practicing Biomimicry
Many architects and built environment professionals are incorporating biomimicry into their work. The three architects below stand out for their passionate promotion and application of biomimicry in architecture.
Jamie Miller:
Jamie Miller is a Canadian architect who trained directly with biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus, and has worked to bring biomimicry into mainstream architecture and engineering. Miller approaches design by asking “How would nature solve this?” and applies biological strategies to improve resilience, adaptability, and sustainability in projects.
He also actively promotes the movement through education by teaching courses, giving talks, and developing tools to make biomimicry accessible to professionals and students alike.
Michael Pawlyn:
Michael Pawlyn is a UK-based architect and founder of Exploration Architecture, widely recognized for his pioneering work in biomimicry. He applies natural principles to design highly sustainable buildings and systems, drawing inspiration from ecosystems and biological efficiency.
Notable projects include the Eden Project and the Sahara Forest Project, both of which demonstrate how biomimicry can address food, water, and energy challenges. Pawlyn actively champions biomimicry through writing, including his influential book Biomimicry in Architecture, and frequent TED talks. His advocacy emphasizes regenerative design, encouraging architects to go beyond sustainability toward creating buildings that function like healthy natural systems.
Neri Oxman:
Neri Oxman is a US-based architect, designer, and professor at the MIT Media Lab, where she founded the Mediated Matter group. She is internationally known for merging biology, design, and technology in what she calls material ecology.
Oxman is known for collaborating with living organisms, such as silkworms, bacteria, and algae, to co-create new materials and structures that integrate with ecosystems. Her projects blur boundaries between built and natural environments, promoting a future where design is symbiotic with life itself. Through exhibitions, research, and public talks, Oxman is a prominent voice expanding the biomimicry movement beyond architecture into science, art, and philosophy.
How to Position Yourself for Biomimicry-Focused Projects
If you want to advance your career through sustainability-centered projects that apply biomimicry, here’s how you can position yourself in this space:
- Start small by creating a micro Biomimicry Project that shows off your design skills in your portfolio, even if it’s just at concept phase. This free Biomimicry Project Playbook will guide you into starting the right project for you.
- Attend conferences and webinars on biomimicry, regenerative design, and ecological innovation, like the Biomimicry Confluence.
- Collaborate across disciplines with engineers, product designers, and biologists who seek architectural expertise in applied biomimicry projects.
- Enroll in a foundational biomimicry course to learn the basics of biomimicry, like this Biomimicry Short Course set. You don’t need to have strong biology knowledge, you simply need to have a willingness to learn from nature.
Employers and clients are often looking for architects who combine their skills with a forward-looking sustainability mindset.
For further reading, look into this article: How to Apply Biomimicry in Architecture.
Skills That Will Enable You to Practice Biomimicry
To grow your architecture career through biomimicry, developing both technical and conceptual skills is essential. Consider focusing on:
- Defining and (Deeply) Understanding Your Challenge: In biomimicry, clarity about the challenge is essential and the key is to look beyond surface-level design issues to the core functions a building needs to perform, such as regulating temperature, conserving water, or providing shade. By framing challenges functionally, it becomes easier to find parallels in nature where organisms or ecosystems have solved similar problems.
- Regenerative Design Insights: Biomimicry in architecture moves beyond doing “less harm,” to buildings that restore ecosystems. This means designing structures that clean air, filter water, generate energy, or create habitats, much like ecosystems do.
- Systems Thinking: Nature operates in systems, where every element influences and supports the whole. Architects practicing biomimicry must adopt this perspective, mapping how buildings interact with water, energy, materials, and communities. Instead of treating design challenges in isolation, they identify feedback loops, synergies, and unintended consequences.
- Biology Research: Problem solve by looking to nature for inspiration, and studying different natural models and their strategies. This means learning to ask, “What would nature do here?” and translating insights from organisms and ecosystems into design strategies.
- Collaboration: Biomimicry thrives at the intersection of disciplines. Collaborating with biologists, ecologists, engineers, and material scientists bridges the gap between inspiration and implementation. These partnerships allow architects to uncover precise biological insights, validate their feasibility, and refine them into functional design elements.
- Storytelling and Communication: Strong storytelling helps architects explain how natural strategies inspire specific design solutions and why they create better outcomes. Framing designs as part of a larger narrative makes concepts memorable and persuasive to clients and stakeholders. Effective communication also builds excitement among clients, communities, and investors, increasing buy-in for innovative projects.
Biomimicry-focused organisations offer specialized training programs, like the Biomimicry Practitioner Program offered by Learn Biomimicry, that focus on these skills, giving architects accessible entry points into this growing field.
In Closing, Here’s Why Biomimicry in Architecture is the Way Forward
The architecture profession has always been about shaping the spaces where people live, work, and connect. Now, it is also about shaping a sustainable regenerative future.
By embracing biomimicry in architecture, you can unlock innovative designs and regenerative possibilities.
Biomimicry is a path that not only enhances your professional growth but also helps you create buildings and cities that function like living systems: resilient, adaptive, and life-friendly.
The question is no longer whether to adopt biomimicry, but how quickly you can build the skills to thrive in this evolving field.
For architects, the opportunity is clear: learn from nature, advance your career, and help design a life-friendly world.
For more, read this paper on biomimicry in architecture - Biomimicry in Architecture: A Review of Definitions, Case Studies, and Design Methods