Learning from Nature: The Biomimicry Podcast with Lily Urmann

Lily Urmann
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We share this planet with millions of species, each full of hidden wisdom shaped by eons of evolution. Biomimicry draws inspiration from nature’s genius to create designs that nurture both people and the planet. Join Lily Urmann, biomimic and educator, as she reveals how this powerful practice sparks innovation across fields. Together, let’s discover what we can learn from nature.

  1. 6 days ago

    Biomimicry in Business and Harnessing the Hidden Power of Edges with Ines Garcia

    What if your organization could function as effectively and sustainably as a healthy ecosystem? We explore this question with Ines Garcia, an agile coach, circular economy expert, and author of Nature's Blueprint for Business: Harnessing the Hidden Power of Edges. Listen in and delve into Ines's professional path, the practical application of nature's principles in organizational design, and how shifting from rigid structures to collaborating in "the edges" (the permeable zones where different systems meet) can foster resilience and innovation. Together, let's figure out how to cultivate organizational spaces that embrace the wisdom nature has evolved over 3.8 billion years.  Sponsored by Learn Biomimicry. Curious about how nature can solve our biggest design challenges? Start your education today. Use code LEARNINGFROMNATURE to save: 20% off the Biomimicry Short Course Set 5% off the Biomimicry Practitioner & Biomimicry Educator Programs Expand your mind with free resources from the Learn Biomimicry Blog: Discover the 50 Best Biomimicry Examples, explore Biophilic Design, or learn about Patterns in Nature. Grab some Learning from Nature merch including shirts and sweatshirts. Learning from Nature audio editing by Pine Peak Productions.

    47 min

  2. 09/12/2025

    Biomimicry and Circular Systems: Designing for Resilience with Rana Hajirasouli

    In this episode, we dive into a surprising but essential topic for a life-friendly future: trade networks and resource sharing. Guest Rana Hajirasouli, circular-economy innovator and founder of the climate-tech startup The Surpluss, explains how nature’s systems can inspire smarter, more collaborative ways for industries to reduce waste, strengthen supply chains, and unlock new forms of value. With experience spanning marine conservation, international law, and manufacturing (as well as recognition from the World Economic Forum and UAE’s Future 100), Rana brings a sharp, systems-level perspective to what circularity can look like in practice. From industrial symbiosis to resource sovereignty, she breaks down how we can redesign our networks the way nature does: with efficiency, reciprocity, and resilience at the core. Tune in for a compelling conversation about what’s possible when we rethink how we share. Learn more about The Surpluss.  Note: Host Lily Urmann is welcoming the newest biomimic in January, and will be on maternity leave until June 2026.  Sponsored by Learn Biomimicry. Curious about how nature can solve our biggest design challenges? Start your education today. Use code LEARNINGFROMNATURE to save: 20% off the Biomimicry Short Course Set 5% off the Biomimicry Practitioner & Biomimicry Educator Programs Expand your mind with free resources from the Learn Biomimicry Blog: Discover the 50 Best Biomimicry Examples, explore Biophilic Design, or learn about Patterns in Nature. Grab some Learning from Nature merch including shirts and sweatshirts. Learning from Nature audio editing by Pine Peak Productions.

    43 min

  3. 24/10/2025

    Critical Mast: Biomimicry of Collective and Swarming Behavior with Dr. Iain Couzin

    How might emergent strategies of group dynamics in nature inform our own technology and design? In this episode, Dr. Iain Couzin, Director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and one of the world’s leading researchers on collective motion in animals, explores how nature’s systems -- from swarming locusts and murmurations of starlings to schooling fish -- coordinate complex group behaviors without centralized control, and what these patterns can teach us about designing human systems that are more adaptive, resilient, and cooperative. Dr. Couzin shares insights from decades of research on how simple rules at the individual level can create intelligent, emergent behaviors at scale; offering powerful inspiration for rethinking collaboration, innovation, and decision-making in our own organizations and societies. This Critical Mast episode is part of a community podcasting experiment on the phenomenon of masting— when trees mysteriously synchronize to produce massive seed crops all at once. In my conversation with Dr. Couzin, we will look beyond the forest to another kind of synchronization: the elegant intelligence of swarming life. Listen to the other episodes below or available on the Spotify Playlist here. Outside/InFuture EcologiesGolden State Naturalist Jumpstart NatureNature's Archive Sponsored by Learn Biomimicry. Curious about how nature can solve our biggest design challenges? Start your education today. Use code LEARNINGFROMNATURE to save: 20% off the Biomimicry Short Course Set 5% off the Biomimicry Practitioner & Biomimicry Educator Programs Expand your mind with free resources from the Learn Biomimicry Blog: Discover the 50 Best Biomimicry Examples, explore Biophilic Design, or learn about Patterns in Nature. Grab some Learning from Nature merch including shirts and sweatshirts. Learning from Nature audio editing by Pine Peak Productions.

    49 min

  4. 29/08/2025

    Biomimicry in Architecture with Michael Pawlyn

    What does it look like for humans to align with life? The built environment and urban areas represent a massive opportunity to significantly lower emissions, improve biodiversity, and create healthier, more resilient communities through the application of regenerative design guided by nature. Architect Michael Pawlyn shares how we can access powerful leverage points within complex systems and find hope for a thriving, life-friendly future driven by the wisdom of the natural world. Get a copy of Biomimicry in Architecture (3rd edition) here.  Learn more about Michael Pawlyn and Exploration Architecture here.  Sponsored by Learn Biomimicry. Curious about how nature can solve our biggest design challenges? Start your education today. Use code LEARNINGFROMNATURE to save: 20% off the Biomimicry Short Course Set 5% off the Biomimicry Practitioner & Biomimicry Educator Programs Expand your mind with free resources from the Learn Biomimicry Blog: Discover the 50 Best Biomimicry Examples, explore Biophilic Design, or learn about Patterns in Nature. Grab some Learning from Nature merch including shirts and sweatshirts. Learning from Nature audio editing by Pine Peak Productions.

    49 min

  5. 23/07/2025

    Biomimicry in Visual Design with Michelle Fehler

    Many of us are familiar with applying nature's genius to physical products or the built environment, but we can also integrate this practice into visual design fields and processes. Michelle Fehler, a professor in The Design School at Arizona State University, dives into her approach for reconnecting with nature and sharing practices rooted in biomimicry within the visual communication space. In this conversation we discuss feedback loops, teaching methodologies, and what it looks like to move beyond only designing for the user to designing for nature -- which in turn includes humans. When nature is at the design table, we can address wicked problems with time-tested strategies from life all around us.  Purchase the Biomimicry in Graphic Design Card Set or Nature-Based Design Decisions: A Brainstorm and Evaluation Tool. View other resources from Michelle.  Learn more about ASU biomimicry programs.  Sponsored by Learn Biomimicry. Curious about how nature can solve our biggest design challenges? Start your education today. Use code LEARNINGFROMNATURE to save: 20% off the Biomimicry Short Course Set 5% off the Biomimicry Practitioner & Biomimicry Educator Programs Expand your mind with free resources from the Learn Biomimicry Blog: Discover the 50 Best Biomimicry Examples, explore Biophilic Design, or learn about Patterns in Nature. Grab some Learning from Nature merch including shirts and sweatshirts. Learning from Nature audio editing by Pine Peak Productions.

    26 min

  6. 16/06/2025

    What Biomimicry is Calling For with Alistair Daynes

    The world is ready for learning from nature to take off, but what does biomimicry really need in order to gain more traction on a larger scale? Listen in to our special live episode with Learn Biomimicry Managing Director Alistair Daynes to hear how we can continue to move the needle on integrating and expanding the biomimicry perspective in all spaces. Whether you are just starting out or further along in your journey, this episode contains advice from a seasoned mentor and guidelines for going deeper.  Sponsored by Learn Biomimicry. Curious about how nature can solve our biggest design challenges? Start your education today. Use code LEARNINGFROMNATURE to save: 20% off the Biomimicry Short Course Set 5% off the Biomimicry Practitioner & Biomimicry Educator Programs Expand your mind with free resources from the Learn Biomimicry Blog: Discover the 50 Best Biomimicry Examples, explore Biophilic Design, or learn about Patterns in Nature. Grab some Learning from Nature merch including shirts and sweatshirts. Learning from Nature audio editing by Pine Peak Productions.

    30 min

  7. 11/04/2025

    Bio-Alchemy and Diving into Nature’s Sleight of Hand with Andrew Meador

    Humans are a very young species. Compared to the other organisms that we share this planet with, we are novices in how to live in harmony here. Mimicking nature’s elegant and efficient structures on the micro and nano-scale has been a major limiting factor in our designs. But we are making progress in learning from nature’s structure and chemistry. Doing reactions at ambient temperature and pressure with nontoxic materials is still mostly an aspiration for us; but nature can lead the way. Andrew Meador explores the momentum of different biomimicry applications on the chemical and physical level, and we discuss some mind-blowing examples of how organisms leverage chemistry in their habitat.  Connect with Andrew Meador on LinkedIn. Watch Andrew's TEDx talk on biomimicry and birds. Sponsored by Learn Biomimicry. Curious about how nature can solve our biggest design challenges? Start your education today. Use code LEARNINGFROMNATURE to save: 20% off the Biomimicry Short Course Set 5% off the Biomimicry Practitioner & Biomimicry Educator Programs Expand your mind with free resources from the Learn Biomimicry Blog: Discover the 50 Best Biomimicry Examples, explore Biophilic Design, or learn about Patterns in Nature. Grab some Learning from Nature merch including shirts and sweatshirts. Learning from Nature audio editing by Pine Peak Productions.

    34 min

  8. 02/12/2024

    Special Episode: Nature Journaling with John Muir Laws

    Cultivating a curiosity for our world is the first step in repairing our relationship with place, the organisms that we share our planet with, and ourselves. This reconnecting is at the core of a crucial and life-changing practice called nature journaling. John Muir Laws is a leader and innovator in the world-wide nature journaling movement and shares his wealth of knowledge in a very special Learning from Nature episode. This conversation invites you to ponder the intricacies of everyday life and encourages you to begin recording and reflecting. Nature journaling is especially important for biomimicry: this practice can help to shift perspectives and offers new inspiration!  "A world of infinite beauty and discovery waits just beyond the point where we usually stop paying attention" (John Muir Laws). Learn more about John Muir Laws, and purchase his books. Join the Wild Wonder Foundation nature journaling movement. Get a nature journaling for biomimicry book (iSites). Sponsored by Learn Biomimicry. Curious about how nature can solve our biggest design challenges? Start your education today. Use code LEARNINGFROMNATURE to save: 20% off the Biomimicry Short Course Set 5% off the Biomimicry Practitioner & Biomimicry Educator Programs Expand your mind with free resources from the Learn Biomimicry Blog: Discover the 50 Best Biomimicry Examples, explore Biophilic Design, or learn about Patterns in Nature. Grab some Learning from Nature merch including shirts and sweatshirts. Learning from Nature audio editing by Pine Peak Productions.

    57 min
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We share this planet with millions of species, each full of hidden wisdom shaped by eons of evolution. Biomimicry draws inspiration from nature’s genius to create designs that nurture both people and the planet. Join Lily Urmann, biomimic and educator, as she reveals how this powerful practice sparks innovation across fields. Together, let’s discover what we can learn from nature.

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