Fifteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Colour in nature has evolved to be efficient, meeting the highest standards of sustainable design and achieves environmentally, socially, and economically balanced outcomes. Structural colour in particular is one of the most promising areas for biomimicry innovation, it is a way to produce colour without relying on toxic chemistry, pollution, and wasteful processes. In physics, structural colour is described as “light interference” and is produced by the very small-scale structures of some materials. While the invitation to innovate with structural colour is attractive to many designers - finding, understanding, and implementing scientific information into the design process is a major challenge. This project will address the gaps in communication between science and design disciplines that prevent accessing knowledge to develop biomimetic design applications using structural colour. To bridge this gap I proposed creating an ecosystem of digital tools inspired by Academic Prototyping and Rich-Prospect Browsing methods. This approach brings new insights on creating and manipulating colour without using pigments, inviting exploration of the natural world and learning how this knowledge can be shared effectively with a broader audience. The ultimate intent is to improve communication between scientists and designers involved in biomimetic projects on structural colour, and to inspire new projects.