Hierarchical architectures : lessons from the living world

The lecture proposes a parallel between engineering design and natural solutions. Because nature has to work at low temperatures, it is limited to organic or solution-chemistry materials. The fascinating variety of natural materials comes from the variety of natural hierarchical architectures that can be observed in wood, bone and shells. Conversely, the engineer has access to a wide variety of constituent materials, but is, to date, relatively uninventive when it comes to architectures. The combination of these two strategies, the basis of structural biomimicry, could prove to be a source of great innovation.