Tom McKeag

Tom McKeag teaches bio-inspired design at the California College of the Arts and University of California, Berkeley, is the founder and president of BioDreamMachine, helped establish the nation’s first public elementary school course in biomimicry, and works as a licensed landscape architect and community planner.

Tom McKeag teaches bio-inspired design to undergraduate design students at the California College of the Arts and to graduate architectural, science and engineering students at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the founder and president of BioDreamMachine, a nonprofit educational institute that brings bio-inspired design and science education to K12 schools. In 2006, McKeag helped establish the nation’s first public elementary school course in biomimicry at the Dixie Elementary School in Marin County, Calif. In his spare time he works as a licensed landscape architect and community planner.

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Blog

Lessons from Spiders and Mussels on Manufacturing Design
By Tom McKeag, August 04, 2010
Rethinking the methods of manufacturing and making wiser decisions about how to distribute those goods will be essential to allow future generations to share our world. Nature just so happens to...
Bringing Biomimicry To Cement, Offices and Daily Life Design
By Tom McKeag, July 15, 2010
The Biomimicry Institute’s ...
Will Synthetic Biology Lead to Truly Living Buildings? Buildings
By Tom McKeag, June 16, 2010
The creation of the world's first artificial life form (a new type of bacteria cell) promises to make synthetic biology a permanent part of our world and the possibility of growing live buildings...
Giving Green Buildings a Smarter Skin Buildings
By Tom McKeag, May 10, 2010
New research inspired by principles from nature aims to make buildings smarter and more efficient. A proposed new building membrane would monitor and use moisture and sunlight to control humidity...
Blending the Virtual with the Physical in Green Conference Hopping Design
By Tom McKeag, April 26, 2010
Two conferences and a visit to the California Academy of Sciences show how new ideas can be generated from diverse sources and why aspiring innovators need to mix it up in different venues....
What a Thorny Devil and Camel Nose Can Teach Us About Water Design
By Tom McKeag, March 24, 2010
The issue of water and how best to use it touches every aspect of our lives. As varied as the challenges are, many of them have already been faced by other organisms, and many of their solutions...
Lotus Leaf Demonstrates Business Case for Bio-Inspired Products Design
By Tom McKeag, March 18, 2010
Self-cleaning paint inspired by the Lotus Effect is one of the standout stories of bio-inspired design. Read on for a look at how it came to be, and what it takes for a product inspired by nature...
Is it Worth Looking to Nature for Profit? Design
By Tom McKeag, March 03, 2010
Technological advancements based on nature seem to appear every week and it is a challenge to keep track of them all. It is also a challenge to analyze their worth. Two useful questions are: Is...
Putting a Value on Bees, Trees and the Rest of Nature Design
By Tom McKeag, February 17, 2010
From putting a value on the services provided by fresh water and bees to building a community based on the land's historical ecosystem, companies, governments and groups are bringing heightened...
How Our Bones Inspire Architecture, Chairs and Cars
By Tom McKeag, January 27, 2010
Material is expensive and so is the energy used to make it. You should put the material where it is needed and take it away from where it is doing no good. Living bone is actually doing this all...

The Year in Biomimicry: Fins For Humans, The Aquapenguin and Robots With Whiskers Design
By Tom McKeag, January 13, 2010
It's time to review last year's bio-inspired products and services and pick my favorites, and, since this is my “sandbox,” I have decided to shamelessly name my awards the Tommies....
The Anthozoans Are Coming to Save Us! Corals Offer Concrete Solutions to Our Carbon Woes Design
By Tom McKeag, November 04, 2009
The method corals use for building their homes is worlds away from the way humans have been making cement and concrete, but one company has developed an innovative method for using seawater (which...

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Reducing a Brown Cloud to its Silver Lining: How Natural Limits Lead to Innovation Design
By Tom McKeag, December 08, 2009
While I do not think that we can design our way out of our current problems of climate change, innovation comes in many forms, including the political and cultural. Let's hope for good news from...
At the Bioneers Conference, Living Building Challenge is a Growing Idea Design
By Tom McKeag, October 22, 2009
The Living Building Challenge sets a much higher bar for green buildings than other rating systems, but also allows much more latitude for innovation. Buildings that are striving to meet it...
Nature's Inventions: San Diego Conference Showcases Biomimicry Products Design
By Tom McKeag, October 07, 2009
At the second annual Biomimicry Conference in San Diego, attendees learned about electronic displays that mimic butterflies to save energy, carpeting tiles inspired by forest floors in order to be...

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