I had seen this a while ago, maybe half a year to a year ago and since then, I've kept thinking back to it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ross_lovegrove_shares_organic_designs.html
I'm initially just amused by his personality but I found that I loved how he combines nature and design to create 'funky' products. I'm not sure I agree with how he justifies it, that he doesn't set out to create an aesthetic product, but just uses nature which creates beautiful things. Which, ultimately is true, but if he believes that aesthetics are superficial, then maybe redesigning chairs, which ultimately is the same technology as they were when we were 'living in caves', is a bit hypocritical.
He also often uses expensive materials to create something that could be replicated inexpensively. Isn't kevlar what's used in bullet proof armour? Why would you ever need a bullet proof armoured chair? Which has holes in it anyway??
I do like his concepts though, nature does have some of the most amazing shapes which are underutilised in art and design.
I'd shown this to Jona soon after I'd seen it because I was so delighted by the idea of his car. I figured that something that was entirely self sufficient, and doubled as streetlamps which make neighbourhoods safer, is amazing!
He unfortunately pulled it to bits, pointing out that you couldn't keep anything IN your car because whenever it went up on the pole everything would fall to the front. And not only are they an eye-sore (which I personally don't agree with, because I love that they look so space-age. If only they flew!) they're impractical, and I suppose solar technology is not up to powering a car on such a small scale.
But I think in terms of an initial concept, maybe more of what he was saying towards the beginning of the ted talk, I could introduce some of it into my work. I've already looked at nature in art to some extent, particularly with my Symbiosis essay but I think I could really get into something along the lines of the concepts he began with.
I'll probably also look at many of the people he mentions, with the exception of Zaha Hadid, I couldn't recognise any of their work.