The document outlines functions for various design challenges, including providing comfortable seating for an opera house that allows patrons to sit for up to 3 hours with adequate sight and sound as well as personal space, creating laptops that can be used all day for work and entertainment with communication capabilities, designing affordable shipping for products to complete transactions and meet customer expectations, creating safe and leak-proof water bottles for transporting water, developing an internal communication system for a large transparent organization to send and receive information while reducing email overload, making cell phones that can be used all day for productivity, entertainment and communication with long battery life, designing fabrics that don't cause allergies while maintaining color appeal and quality perception, dramatically reducing automobile weight for increased fuel efficiency

1. John Longchamps
Denise DeLuca
Biomimetic Design
MCAD | Summer 2015
A5.2a – Identifying Functions
Design Challenge
What is the design
intended to DO? FUNCTIONS
We need seating for the
new opera house.
 Keep patrons comfortable for
up to 3 hours
 Provide each person with
adequate sight and sound
from the stage
 Provide each person with
adequate personal space
 cushion
 support
 orient
 prevent sound, light
 receive sound, light
 separate
 protect
Our laptops are too noisy.  Run productivity and work
software suites for all-day
and intermittent workers
 Run gaming and
entertainment software
suites to be used
intermittently
 Allow for communication
 Retrieve information from
stored locations
 Upload and/or store
information
 Provide global platforms
for connectivity and
communication
Our products are really
expensive to ship.
 The receiving party is
intended to have a product
manifested in their
possession
 Shipping from point of
production to customer is
meant to satisfy this
manifestation.
 Traverse land
 Complete transactional
exchange
 Meet customer
expectations of delivery
 Provide customer with
product use

2. Our plastic water bottles
are leaking contaminants
into the water.
 Provide a means of
transporting water.
 Provide an effective means of
retailing water.
 Hold water
 Safety
 Make water transportable
We have a large
organization that believes in
collaboration and
transparency, but we are
overwhelmed with internal
email.
 Provide communication
between colleagues and
teams.
 Provide communication
between departments and
campuses
 Provide internal-external
communication
 Send information
 Receive information
 Archive and document
People love the
performance of our cell
phones, but don’t like
having to charge them so
often.
 Stay charged for all-day use
 Multi-app use that allows for
productivity, entertainment,
and communication apps.
 Store contacts
 Receive sound
 Send sound
 Retrieve information
 Send information
 Store information
More and more people
seem to have allergies and
sensitivities, including to
the dyes we have been
using in our fabrics.
 Appeal to consumer tastes
through color
 Create a decent profit margin
for the company
 Attract human eye (color)
 Influence human decision
making (color)
 Provide perception of
quality to fabric
We want to dramatically
reduce the weight of our
automobiles.
 Increase fuel efficiency
 Decrease production cost
 Structural integrity
 Load-bearing ability
 Longevity
We need to provide
hygienic surfaces, but are
concerned about using
biocides.
 Sterilized areas for safety
 Increase workplace health
 Materials properties
 Self-cleaning
 Durable

3. We need a way to provide
housing to people displaced
by natural disasters.
 House whole population
segments
 Emergency response
strategies
 Protect
 Nurture
 Comfort
 Grow families
Our university is too siloed!  Encourage the integration of
interdepartmental and
interdisciplinary learning for
students
 Integrate faculty across all
disciplines, finding
complimentary areas of
research and development.
 Reinforce
 Diversify
 Strengthen
 Attract students
 Attract faculty