International | Design

Zaha Hadid, famed architect, dies at 65

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Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, whose modernist, futuristic designs included the swooping aquatic center for the 2012 London Olympics, has died at age 65. Hadid's firm said she died Thursday in a Miami hospital. She had contracted bronchitis earlier this week and had a heart attack while being treated. Born and raised in Baghdad, Hadid studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before enrolling at the Architectural Association in London in 1972. She worked for the groundbreaking Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas before setting up London-based Zaha Hadid Architects in 1979
North America | United States | Design

Janine Benyus: Biomimicry Is Innovation Inspired By Nature

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Janine Benyus helped bring the word biomimicry into 21st century vocabularies in her 1997 book on the subject. Her company, The Biomimicry Group, encourages biologists at the design table to ask: how would nature design this? She says our human society will create a more sustainable world in part by emulating the natural organisms all around us, which have already gone through billions of years of trial and error to find elegant and amazing solutions to process and design problems. Biomimicry is innovation inspired by nature. It’s the process of looking at a leaf and trying to figure out