Deep observation of the disparate collections housed here — from nearly nano-scale to life-sized objects — provides the opportunity to touch and examine specimens from the natural world, discover the wonder and complexities of design in nature and inform your studio work through the processes, materials and organizing principles found in the living world. Selected specimens may also be borrowed for short periods of time — like checking a book out of the library.
In the 1920s and ’30s, RISD faculty member Edna W. Lawrence (a 1920 graduate of the Painting program) would spend summers driving across the country collecting natural specimens for students to work with in her Nature Drawing class. In 1937 she founded the Nature Lab with an original collection of 1,286 objects (including shells, butterflies, minerals, skeletons, seed pods and taxidermy) that grew to more than 25,000 items by the time she retired 38 years later. Today the Natural History Collection includes nearly 100,000 individual specimens. You can interact with part of the collection online via our Virtual 3D Specimen Library.
Found in our Microscopy Lab, this collection includes over 1,500 small-scale specimens displayed in 2 x 2’’ clear acrylic boxes. In a way, it is a miniaturized version of our main collection with representatives of all of life's kingdoms. Stereo microscopes offer the opportunity to view, draw, paint and/or digitally capture insects, lichens, corals and myriad other natural wonders magnified between 9x and 185x their actual size.
Discover hidden geometries in the silica structure of a diatom, marvel at the crochet-like patterns revealed in the cross-section of a plant cell and investigate the surprising architecture of a fungal spore. This eye-opening collection of hundreds of prepared glass slide mounts is best explored using our compound microscopes with a magnification capacity of 40 to 1000x actual size.
Our growing library of prepared samples for the scanning electron microscope (SEM) includes both organic and inorganic materials. Capture micrographs and view unexpected topographies revealed in the surface of poppy seeds, sea urchin tests and amethyst crystals magnified up to 350,000x their actual size.
The complete Loeb Collection (Symmetry Portfolio and 3D Model Collection) is now administered by Fleet Library's Visual + Material Resource Center (VMRC; 2nd Floor, 15 Westminster St). The VMRC has created an illustrated catalog of both collections on the school's institutional repository here. Please use this catalog as a finding/selection aid and make an appointment in the VMRC to view the physical items.
Not everything you ever wanted to know lives online. Take some time to browse through our ecological design and natural science reference library to discover interesting and useful resources for the inquiry at hand – and to explore and appreciate the beauty of these books and brochures in their own right. To search our full book catalog through Fleet Library, click here.
The Nature Lab is home to a variety of living plants and animals that include reptiles, amphibians and fishes, as well as arthropods, mollusks, jellyfishes and other invertebrates. Marine aquaria hold seasonal and permanent residents collected from Narragansett Bay. These organisms provide insight into biology, locomotion and behavior in ways that preserved specimens cannot and further represent the diverse strategies for survival found among individual species.
The Nature Lab's approach to material innovation is rooted not only in sustainability, but in creating materials embedded in biological systems, through both natural metabolisms and created metabolisms.
In natural metabolisms, sometimes referred to a g-i-y, or grow-it yourself, organisms make our materials, as is the case with kombucha leather or mushroom foams from introduced feedstocks. Created metabolisms use biologically derived ingredients to fabricate materials with lab equipment, such as starch-, gelatin- or agar- based bioplastics. Some example processes can be viewed in the RISD Nature Lab Bioplastic Guidebook.
Like materials in nature, some are extremely ephemeral, like a flower petal, some can last a very long time indeed, like wood. All are ultimately biodegradeable. Samples of these and other bio-materials can be accessed in person upon request from the Nature Lab's biomaterials library.
For more information, please check out our Biodesign Makerspace website. Contact biomaterials@risd.edu or Jen Bissonnette at jbissonn@risd.edu with any questions.
Click on the samples below for recipes!
It is estimated that life first appeared on this planet 3.8 billion years ago. Since then, our planet has undergone continuous transformation, from the arrival and dispersal of continents and the oxygen atmosphere created by early photosynthesizers, to cataclysmic events such as meteor strikes. Species have always faced challenges imposed by their environment and the species that adapted best, survived. Nature, as we know it today, is the result of the evolutionary design solutions that allowed life to continue despite ongoing pressures and change.
With the increase in global temperatures, the excessive use of natural resources, and the degradation of ecosystems, the intensity of pressures and the pace of change have been magnified. If we are to adapt and survive, we need to rapidly discover solutions to the sustainability challenges we have created. And where better to look for these design solutions than nature itself?
Biomimicry is the emulation of nature’s forms, processes, and ecosystems to create more sustainable designs. Biomimicry provides us with a different way of thinking and making, in which we can draw inspiration from nature to design and produce materials, structures, and systems that better integrate with the natural world. Through biomimicry we have the opportunity to create a more sustainable and just future, and to help regenerate the ecosystems of which we are a part.
Come by the Nature Lab to view the specimens below, and more. The newly constructed Biomimicry cabinet is on display in the Bone Room.
This cabinet is sponsored by the Hyundai Motor Group as part of the RISD x Hyundai Research Partnership.
The Nature Lab offers a range of specialized tools and equipment that support visual inquiry into biological and natural sciences.