In this groundbreaking book, Adrian Bejan takes the recurring patterns in nature—trees, tributaries, air passages, neural networks, and lightning bolts—and reveals how a single principle of physics, the constructal law, accounts for the evolution of these and many other designs in our world. Everything—from biological life to inanimate systems—generates shape and structure and evolves in a sequence of ever-improving designs in order to facilitate flow. River basins, cardiovascular systems, and bolts of lightning are very efficient flow systems to move a current—of water, blood, or electricity. Likewise, the more complex architecture of animals evolve to cover greater distance per unit of useful energy, or increase their flow across the land. Such designs also appear in human organizations, like the hierarchical “flowcharts” or reporting structures in corporations and political bodies. All are governed by the same principle, known as the constructal law, and configure and reconfigure themselves over time to flow more efficiently. Written in an easy style that achieves clarity without sacrificing complexity, Design in Nature is a paradigm-shifting book that will fundamentally transform our understanding of the world around us.

The first design book that translates elements of nature--including flora, water, and wood--into elements of decor for beautiful, lived-in, bohemian interiors, from acclaimed designer and tastemaker Erica Tanov. Inspired by nature's colors, textures, and patterns, design icon Erica Tanov uses her passion for textiles to create beautiful, timeless interiors that connect us to the natural world. Now, in her first book, Design by Nature, Tanov teaches you how to train your eye to the beauty of the natural world, and then bring the outdoors in—incorporating patterns and motifs from nature, as well as actual organic elements, into simple ideas for everyday decorating and design. Design by Nature contains new and imaginative decorating ideas for an organic and bohemian style that mixes and layers rugs, pillows, throws, and drapery, and incorporates unique patterns and fabrics such as shibori, ikat, and jamdani, all stunningly photographed by renowned photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo. With topics ranging from embracing imperfection in your home, to seeking out flea markets, to displaying your collections, Design by Nature takes an enduring and intuitive approach to design that transcends fleeting trends and encourages you to find your own personal style, source of creativity, and connection to the natural world. You don't need to travel to distant locales to find beauty; it's all around us, from the crackle of fallen leaves to the jagged bark of a tree.

In 1969, Ian McHarg's seminal book, Design with Nature, set forth a new vision for regional planning using natural systems. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, a team of landscape architects and planners from PennDesign have showcased some of the most advanced ecological design projects in the world today. Written in clear language and featuring vivid color images, Design with Nature Now demonstrates McHarg's enduring influence on contemporary practitioners as they contend with climate change and other 21st-century challenges.

In Design by Nature: Using Universal Forms and Principles in Design, author Maggie Macnab takes you on an intimate and eclectic journey examining the unending versatility of nature, showing how to uncover nature’s ingenuity and use it to create beautiful and compelling designed communications. Written for designers and creative thinkers of all types, this book will guide you through a series of unexpected a-ha! moments that describe relationships among nature, art, science, technology, and design. Through explanation and example, you will learn about natural processes, consisting of everyday patterns and shapes that are often taken for granted, but that can be used effectively in visual messaging. Explore the principles all human beings intuitively use to understand the world and learn to incorporate nature’s patterns and shapes into your work for more meaningful design. By recognizing and appreciating a broad range of relationships, you can create more aesthetic and effective design, building communications that encompass the universal experience of being part of nature, and that are relevant to a worldwide audience. Teaches how to understand and integrate the essential processes of nature’s patterns and shapes in design Includes key concepts, learning objectives, definitions, and exercises to help you put what you learn into practice Features a foreword by Debbie Millman and reviews and discussions of practice and process by some of the world’s leading designers, including Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister, and Ellen Lupton Includes profiles of street artist Banksy, creative director and author Kenya Hara, and typographical designer Erik Spiekermann

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The chicken bone you nibbled yesterday and threw away was a high-tech product! Not only that: it was a superlative light-weight design, functionally adapted to its mechanical requirements. No engineer in the world has, as yet, been able to copy this structural member, which is excellently optimized in its external shape and its internal architecture as regards minimum weight and maximum strength. The tree stem on which you recently carved your initials has also, by life-long care for its body, steadily improved its internal and external structure and adapted optimally to new loads. In the course of its biomechanical self-optimization it will heal up the notch you cut as speedily as possible, in order to repair even the smallest weak point, which might otherwise cost it its life in the next storm. This book is dedicated to the understanding of this biomechanical optimization of shape. It is the synthesis of many years of extensive research using the latest computer methods at the Karlsruhe Research Centre to help understand the mechanism of biological self-optimization (adaptive growth) and to simulate it by computer. The method newly developed for this purpose was called CAO (Computer-Aided Optimization). With this method, it is possible to predict the growth of trees, bones and other biological structures from the tiger's claw to the sea urchin's skeleton.

"The structural designs that occur in nature - in molecules, in crystals, in living cells - appear in this fully illustrated book as a source of inspiration and study of design of man-made structures" -- BOOK JACKET.