Designing with Nature

On March 23, Steward welcomed Visiting Innovator Richard James MacCowan to campus for a day filled with nature-inspired activities. Mr. MacCowan, founder of the Biomimicry Innovation Lab in the United Kingdom, met with students in all divisions, sharing how we look to nature to help us solve human challenges. His visit aligned with Steward’s 2025-26 schoolwide theme of nature and strategic plan, Compass 2028, which includes a commitment to “hands-on learning, sustainability, and student well-being.”

In his keynotes for Middle and Upper School, Mr. MacCowan, who grew up in Scotland, introduced his talk by sharing that his grandfather’s agricultural background sparked his own interest in “figuring out how things connect.” 

Mr. MacCowan spoke about the wonders of biomimicry — the practice of imitating nature (“In Europe, we call it biomimetics,” he noted) — and gave examples of materials found in the natural world that are used in everyday items. The inventor of Velcro, for example, was inspired after watching burrs get caught on his dog’s fur. In addition, the Sharklet company uses technology inspired by the texture of sharkskin to prevent barnacle growth on the bottom of boats and in hospitals to prevent the growth of bacteria.

He also talked about products inspired by nature that were not successful, such as the Mercedes-Benz Bionic, a 2005 concept car whose shape was modeled after the yellow boxfish’s hexagonal bony plates. The prototype proved to be unstable and was never manufactured. As Mr. MacCowan told students, merely copying the appearance of something in nature doesn’t guarantee a product’s success. 

Lower, Middle, and Upper School students spent time during Mr. MacCowan’s visit in the Bryan Innovation Lab, where they participated in a hands-on biomimicry fair. Guided by their teachers, Mr. MacCowan, Bryan Innovation Lab Dean Brad Kovach, and Dean of Bryan Innovation Lab Programs and Innovation Strategy Megan Young, students constructed mock termite mounds, designed seed parachutes, peered through microscopes to view a variety of items found in nature, and teamed up to build a giant wasp nest out of papier-mache. 

Mr. MacCowan, who also hosted an after-school biomimicry fair and a public keynote, encouraged Spartans to continue to look toward nature as a springboard for designing and problem-solving. He said, “The best work in biomimicry will be done by people who are now students!”