As neighborhoods devastated by Hurricane Sandy begin drafting plans for reconstruction, some progressive architects and urban planners have been pointing out that the emerging science of biomimicry offers a way forward. The notion is that the next generation of waterfront designs could draw inspiration from the intricate ways that plants and animals have adapted to their situations over hundreds of millions of years. — green.blogs.nytimes.com

So when people look at you know, at the ability to 3D print using a robotic arm, they're very, very curious about the possibility of in the future, printing full scale houses, so I think the media lab and specifically in the Media Matter Group, we don't focus only on efficiency translations. For that, I would open a practice in the commercial world, but that's not the function of this lab... — CNN's - THE NEXT LIST

I went to Vienna earlier this year, and it’s extremely charming and deeply concerned with coffee and cake, both of which I appreciate. But I confess that as I wandered the streets, looking up at graceful churches and palaces, I often thought “what a shame it is that none of these buildings look like a nightmare structure of bare twigs and spider egg sacs.” — Grist.org

Some aspects of biomimicry have been played around with for a long time for example mimicking the structure of termite mounds. There have been a lot of architects who have toyed with biomimicry, but have been quite dependent on seductive imagery such as spiders' webs, but often the designs haven't been seen through in a particularly thorough way. Sometimes the examples from nature are just used as a departure point for developing original and whacky forms. — Michael Pawlyn, via wired.co.uk