Biomimicry and discovery design:
We are in the pursuing a dialectic relationship between discovering and creating. Much of modern design is focused on creating, and often through emphasizing a contrast with the environment in a form of using unnatural materials, colors, and angles.
The challenge of discovery design is in the gentle appropriation of natural materials or configurations for human purposes.
Rather than conforming standard dimensional lumber into a particular shape for a perfect furniture, we are aiming on spending the time to find the right timber or branch in which the fewest modifications could make an almost perfect piece. This practice, though it may seem pragmatic, is really about aesthetics of symbolically redefining the role of humans in their environment from “creators” into “creative explorers”. The fundamental function here is the acceptance and even celebration of natural forms and materials as part of a daily practice of nature appreciation.