Bio-inspired structures

Many years ago - decades - I considered, whimsically, doing botany and architecture so as to combine the two and design structures based on nature's designs. This idea may have gone back to an essay I wrote at school about a whole town built on hexagonal designs to save building materials. At the time it seemed like just another silly notion; since then, I've seen many designs that are indeed based on nature's wisdom. Here's a course looking into just such designs: It's called Bio-Inspired Structures and is available at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Aeronautics-and-Astronautics/16-982Spring-2009/CourseHome/index.htm . These MIT open courses are free, so a lack of funds is no barrier. You are welcome to 'attend' at no cost and learn all that is to be learned, but there's no certificate or degree attached.