In early October 2020, our Director of Design, Oksana Bondar, interviewed with the Evening Standard Magazine, discussing how her design practice has evolved during the lockdown. Take a trip down the microscope and read the full un-edited interview below, to find out how she takes inspiration from 'Mother Nature'.
Image: Oksana Bondar, taking inspiration from nature (Mark Cocksedge)
What item was your companion was during lockdown earlier in the year?
'My loyal companion during lockdown has been a compound microscope, a
new addition to the toolbox in my home studio. I'm passionate about
biomimetics, a design inspired by the way functional challenges have
been solved in biology, and have been eager to explore what the
natural world can teach designers - lockdown has facilitated long
evenings with my new best friend - the looking glass into the wonders
of Mother Nature.'
Image: Japanese acer leaf blade (Oksana Bondar)
What changes would you like to see in a post-Covid era?
'I believe Covid has taught us all many lessons and facilitated a
global social, economic and environmental re-evaluation. We have come
face to face with the number of limits, from food shortages in our
supermarkets to materials not being available to our industries, and
sensed the brutality of borders between and within countries; we have
felt betrayed and abandoned by our governments, but realised the power
of place-based and global community; we have challenged preconceptions
about race and gender, whilst pulling through loss and mourning. Covid
has taken us on a rocky journey and I believe what is felt in every
home, office, factory and parliament is that there needs to be a
change and it needs to be a systemic one. I believe we collectively
have a chance to intrinsically rethink and re-design our man-made
world and I envisage the post-Covid era to manifest a circular and
inclusive economy, where people have agency and autonomy, where our
industrial activities are regenerative and are symbiotic with a
natural world that flourishes.'
Image: 'Microscopy' (Oksana Bondar)
'Being a true believer in nature, I would like to see us tapping into
the recent experience of being slowed down and isolated to unlearn the
way we lead our personal lives and the way we operate as an industry
and society. Without sounding like a tree-hugger and not that
tree-hugging is bad in any way, I believe we can fuel the paradigm
shift by looking to the natural world for solutions to our social,
economic, and environmental problems. Nature has faced and resolved
all challenges through billions of years of evolution and holds
answers to design, business, industrial, societal, and systemic
problems. When we look closer, we will find that the concept of waste
is non-existent, all nutrients are in constant circulation within
their respective, place-based cycles, all forms are highly functional
and all organisms work with one another in symbiotic partnerships. I
dream about being a part of a society that follows the rules and laws
that govern the natural world that we are an integral part of to learn
and mimic its sophistication, elegance and equilibrium. I especially
would like to see these changes in the industry to which I have
dedicated my life - design.'
Image: Mallow stem cross section (Oksana Bondar)
'Designers have a unique opportunity to
play a critical role in determining what the post-Covid world will be.
I would love to see the design industry re-conceptualise what ‘good
design’ is by designing for diversity, optimising rather than
maximising by tapping into the power of limits, developing
place-based, vernacular solutions, creating intelligent materials and
products by running on information, shaping for evolution, fitting
form to function, applying systemic thinking and taking all
stakeholders into consideration. Learning from nature might feel
backwards to many, however I believe that as an industrialised society
we are yet to fully comprehend the true genius of nature and that if
it’s combined with our inquisitiveness, curiosity and creativity along
with the advanced technology, we will see that we are on the brink of
a new age of nature-inspired invention and an Anthropocene that is
characterised by regeneration rather than destruction. Naturally it
might feel daunting to step into the unknown but perhaps to ease us
into the journey of creating the new, we should all take a look into
the ocular lens of a microscope and be reminded of the amazing!'
Image: Microscopic image of a Horse Chestnut leaf blade (Oksana Bondar)