Organisms and their features represent a complex system of solutions that can efficiently inspire the development of original and cutting-edge design applications: the related discipline is known as biomimetics. From the smallest to the largest, every species has developed and adapted different working principles based on their relative dimensional realm. In nature, size changes determine remarkable effects in organismal structures, functions, and evolutionary innovations. Similarly, size and scaling rules need to be considered in the biomimetic transfer of solutions to different dimensions, from nature to artefacts. The observation of principles that occur at very small scales, such as for nano- and microstructures, can often be seen and transferred to a macroscopic scale. However, this transfer is not always possible; numerous biological structures lose their functionality when applied to different scale dimensions. Hence, the evaluation of the effects and changes in scaling biological working principles to the final design dimension is crucial for the success of any biomimetic transfer process. This review intends to provide biologists and designers with an overview regarding scale-related principles in organismal design and their application to technical projects regarding mechanics, optics, electricity, and acoustics.

In biomimetic design, functional systems, principles, and processes observed in nature are used for the development of innovative technical systems. The research on functional features is often carried out without giving importance to the generative mechanism behind them: evolution. To deeply understand and evaluate the meaning of functional morphologies, integrative structures, and processes, it is imperative to not only describe, analyse, and test their behaviour, but also to understand the evolutionary history, constraints, and interactions that led to these features. The discipline of palaeontology and its approach can considerably improve the efficiency of biomimetic transfer by analogy of function; additionally, this discipline, as well as biology, can contribute to the development of new shapes, textures, structures, and functional models for productive and generative processes useful in the improvement of designs. Based on the available literature, the present review aims to exhibit the potential contribution that palaeontology can offer to biomimetic processes, integrating specific methodologies and knowledge in a typical biomimetic design approach, as well as laying the foundation for a biomimetic design inspired by extinct species and evolutionary processes: Paleomimetics. A state of the art, definition, method, and tools are provided, and fossil entities are presented as potential role models for technical transfer solutions.

In the bio-technological era the boundary between the biological world and synthetic world is increasingly fading, as well as, the limit between different disciplines in the perspective of multidisciplinary and anti-disciplinary. Conversely, the overcoming of barriers is not to be considered as a symptom of homogenization or loss of complexity, but rather, as a paradigm, in which new forms of connection and intersection between design and science are created. In this vision, hybrid products can be generated in which nature and artifice co-exist: a change of paradigm that deeply revises the concept of environmental sustainability. This paper aims to illustrate activities, methods and results of the Hybrid Design Lab-(HDL)- Department of the Campania University "Luigi Vanvitelli"- specifically dedicated to different forms of collaboration and intersection between design and bio-sciences, specifically aimed to environmental sustainability.