Mother Knows Best: Home Design Inspired by Nature
(Page 3 of 4)
March/April 2008
By Deborah Coburn
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Create life-affirming beauty. Nature knows the value of beauty. Flowers have developed showy petals, bright colors, tantalizing scents and sweet nectar to attract bees, which are necessary for pollination.
In interior design, use objects that reflect your passions. Love music? Frame old sheet music or leave instruments out for viewing and using. Love family? Hang photographs and memorabilia. Love nature? Bring treasures indoors as the seasons change to remind you of natural cycles. Put sand and seashells in pretty glass containers in summer; fill vases with autumn leaves in fall.
Optimize your resources. Find inspiration in the resilience of natural things. Perennial plants put down strong roots that see them through the winter so they can return summer after summer. Longevity is the reward for being efficient and learning to do more with less.
Sustainable interior design is also about doing more with less. "Eighty-five percent of manufactured items quickly become waste," Benyus writes in Biomimicry. Consider longevity when buying furniture. Choosing sturdy, repairable pieces optimizes resources and makes your investments last.
Nature also uses materials wisely, and sometimes one structure may be recycled two or three times. A shell harbors the animal that made it, then might be reclaimed by another animal (such as a hermit crab). Ultimately the shell becomes sand.
In interior design, make sure everything you put in a room will have a long life and can be reused or donated when you are finished with it.
"When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God-made object like a tree or a flower. If it clashes, it is not art."
—Paul Cézanne
Follow the cycle of life. The grand cycle of death and renewal is a wonderful teacher. Materials, organisms and creatures live out their lives and are then reabsorbed for another use, thereby perpetuating life. Nature is a closed system in which there’s no waste: One species’ waste is another’s food.