Feral by Design

Pia Williams
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  • NATURE
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Feral by Design is a podcast stealing nature’s smartest strategies for our everyday chaos. Short, playful episodes grounded in real science, told through messy, self-deprecating stories. Some dive into real-world examples, others explore fresh frameworks inspired by nature. It's Biomimicry with the door left open: smart ideas from nature, made relatable, practical, and surprisingly fun. Nature owns the patent - we get to copy it.

  1. FEB 9

    S2E02 Scratching the Wrong Itch: Wombats, mange and why our systems won’t heal

    This episode came from noticing a place biomimicry could quietly change the way I work, thanks to a wombat called Chardonnay. I've treated wombats with mange in the wild. Every few days, we hike in, pour medicine on the animal, hike back out. Weeks of this. And sometimes months later, the mange is back. And the cycle begins again. Because the mites don't just live on the wombat. They survive in the burrow. Treat the host, ignore the habitat, and reinfection undoes everything. One day, driving home from the mountains, it hit me: I'd been doing the exact same thing with my clients. Training teams, watching them transform, coming back months later to find old behaviours back in place. Not because the training failed. Because the conditions pulled them back. This episode is about recognising your own reinfection cycles, the places where we keep scratching the wrong itch. This isn’t motivation or mindset. It’s a design problem. Feral by Design. Where nature shows how systems actually work. Please share with someone you think might be scratching the wrong itch. 🎧 New episodes every fortnight. Follow Feral by Design.  Note on the wombat work: The fieldwork described in this episode is done with the Blue Mountains Wombat Conservation Group, a volunteer-run organisation treating sarcoptic mange in wild wombats. If you’d like to learn more about the work, the group has a Facebook page - Blue Mountains Wombat Conservation Group. 🎧 feralbydesign.com | @feralbydesignpod | Created and hosted by Pia Williams Subscribe and listen. Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

    15 min

  2. JAN 26

    S2Ep01 - Between the Flags: Static signals, moving risk

    A swim that went wrong.  A lifesaver’s eyes locked on mine.  And a question I couldn’t shake. Most safety systems are built for calm moments, but danger rarely shows up when we’re calm. At the beach, water reorganises itself minute by minute, yet the signals we rely on stay exactly the same. This episode explores what happens when static signals try to manage moving risk - and what nature does differently. From surf flags to cuttlefish, it’s about sensing change, signalling state, and what happens when things that don’t move are designed to manage those that do. It’s a biomimicry-led look at beach safety, risk under stress, and state-based signalling in dynamic environments. It’s not about sharks. It’s not about following rules. It’s about what it would feel like if our beach flags and safety signals could change state, the way cuttlefish do. 🎧 feralbydesign.com | @feralbydesignpod | Created and hosted by Pia Williams Subscribe and listen. Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

    17 min
  3. Ep10 - Snowflake Melting Moments (Christmas Special)

    12/15/2025

    Ep10 - Snowflake Melting Moments (Christmas Special)

    The second episode in the Feral Festive Special drifts into unexpected territory: snowflakes.  This episode isn’t biomimicry — snowflakes don’t behave — but the pattern they form, shaped by whatever air they fall through, is the part we’re playing with today. December has its own weather system: family dynamics, big tables, small tables, solo days, first holidays after loss, chaotic joy, quiet overwhelm — often all within the same week. And for some reason, we keep trying to control the whole thing. Snowflakes don’t.  They don’t plan or perfect.  They just respond to the moment they’re in — a small, surprisingly grounding way to think about a month that can feel too full, too loud, or too tender. If your festive season is looking wobbly, wonderful, weird — or all three — this episode is a light, calming reframe for a very human December. 🎧 feralbydesign.com | @feralbydesignpod | Created and hosted by Pia Williams Subscribe and listen. Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

    8 min
  4. Ep09 - The Raw Prawn (Christmas Special)

    12/08/2025

    Ep09 - The Raw Prawn (Christmas Special)

    Part 1 of the Feral Festive Special: the prawn. Yes, really. This festive run goes rogue - nature-inspired, not biomimicry - a deliberately Feral detour for December's chaos. We're diving into the prawn's soft-shell phase: that blink-and-you-miss-it moment where they ditch their old shell, stretch like hell, and grow before anyone notices. Chaotic. Unprotected. Maximum transformation. Tell me that's not peak December energy. If you're rolling into the end of the year feeling overcooked, under-armoured, or weirdly molten inside, this episode will make you laugh, wince, and feel slightly better without trying. Happy holidays! 🎧 feralbydesign.com | @feralbydesignpod | Created and hosted by Pia Williams Subscribe and listen. Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

    9 min
  5. Ep08 - Reality Bites: How Meerkats Make Learning Stick

    12/01/2025

    Ep08 - Reality Bites: How Meerkats Make Learning Stick

    Ever taken a course, nailed the theory… and then fallen apart the moment it gets real? Same. And it turns out the fix lives in the Kalahari. In this episode, Pia heads into meerkat country to uncover a quietly brilliant system for learning that actually sticks under pressure - not just in your head, but in your bones. No hacks. No feel-good fluff. Just nature-tested design principles for building capability in the real world, without the chaos or the panic. From small “reality bites” to why purpose matters more than motivation, this is a surprisingly human look at why we freeze, why we bail, and how to take one small real step that changes everything. If you’ve ever been stuck in theory mode, over-preparing, under-doing, or circling something that matters - this one’s for you. 🎧 feralbydesign.com | @feralbydesignpod | Created and hosted by Pia Williams Subscribe and listen. Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

    11 min

  6. 11/24/2025

    Ep07 - The Retiring Coffee Cup: Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time

    Ever felt that tiny stab of guilt when you toss a takeaway coffee cup into the bin, even when you’re trying to do the right thing? In this episode, Pia takes that everyday eco-anxiety somewhere unexpected: underwater, to the mussel - a creature that quietly solves problems we’ve been wrestling with for decades. From its renewable anchor threads comes a provocative idea for a different kind of cup altogether. Not disposable. Not forever. But something in between: a retiring cup, designed to age gracefully and work with how humans actually behave. Whether you drink things, think things, design things, or decline things… this one’s for you. If this episode leaves you seeing your daily coffees a little differently, please  share it with someone. Subscribe and listen. Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.  🎧 feralbydesign.com | @feralbydesignpod | Created and hosted by Pia Williams Subscribe and listen. Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

    11 min

  7. 11/17/2025

    Ep06 - Swooped: What Magpies Know About Handling Conflict

    Ever been swooped by a magpie? Turns out, you weren’t being attacked — you were being communicated with. And you probably missed the whole conversation. Magpies avoid real fighting through communication — using graduated conflict signals to regulate tension and maintain social balance. They’ve mastered something we humans rarely do: tiered cues, pattern-based memory, and conflict used as maintenance rather than meltdown. In this episode, Pia uses biomimicry to explore how we can handle tension more like a magpie — why every argument today trains a pattern for tomorrow; how to spot early signals before small frictions become full-scale blow-ups. She also unpacks her framing of “memory as mentor, not menace,” and how it creates a faster route back to calm. Because maybe peace isn’t the absence of conflict — it’s just conflict done right. 🎧 feralbydesign.com | @feralbydesignpod | Created and hosted by Pia Williams Subscribe and listen. Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

    12 min

  8. 11/11/2025

    Ep05 - Hooked: How Burrs Inspired Velcro

    Hooked: How Burrs Inspired Velcro — and Why Curiosity Is The Real Innovation. Ever spent an hour on your kitchen floor pulling burrs out of your dog’s fur while questioning your life choices? Those annoying little hitchhikers accidentally sparked one of the most successful biomimicry stories in history — the invention of Velcro. In this episode, Pia unpicks the legend — a Swiss engineer, a hunting trip, and a microscope moment that turned frustration into a global, nature-inspired design revolution. Two tiny words did it all: hook and loop. But we’re not stopping at the origin story. From space suits to school shoes, Velcro solved one problem brilliantly but left another wide open — and that’s the part worth re-designing. It’s funny, sticky, and surprisingly deep. Because sometimes the best ideas start with the stuff that drives you mad — you just have to look close enough to see the genius underneath. If this quick trip to the moon and back was worth it, please share this episode with someone who’s curious and would enjoy the ride. 🎧 feralbydesign.com | @feralbydesignpod | Created and hosted by Pia Williams Subscribe and listen. Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

    11 min
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About

Feral by Design is a podcast stealing nature’s smartest strategies for our everyday chaos. Short, playful episodes grounded in real science, told through messy, self-deprecating stories. Some dive into real-world examples, others explore fresh frameworks inspired by nature. It's Biomimicry with the door left open: smart ideas from nature, made relatable, practical, and surprisingly fun. Nature owns the patent - we get to copy it.

Information

  • Creator
    Pia Williams
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    13
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Feral by Design
  • Show Website
    Feral by Design