Biomimicry uses inspiration from organism design to rethink or imagine creations for use in the built environment. An important component of this is not merely copying the form, but considering materials, efficiencies, and a cradle to cradle approach of life-cycle analysis. In a very real sense, biomimicry can then be broken down into biomaterials, bioforms, and biosystems, but bioforms is broken out here as it is the traditional (if more superficial) aspect of biomimicry.

Biomimicry at the lab usually takes the form of "looks like" or "works like". Looks-like copies the visual aspects of form that may or may not have a useful design component. For example, a "looks-like" for a crab claw would follow it's shape and even color, but not be articulated to open and close as a crab claw would. Conversely, a "works-like" model is usually an abstracted functionality that usually bears only minimal resemblance to the inspiring organism. Thus the works-like model for the crab claw could be a grabbing mechanism that looks very little like the original claw.

For class content specifically around biomimicry, see lesson plan 5.