Imagine a future where you begin your morning tending to the hydroponic garden in your kitchen, populated with vibrant green algae purifying your air and replenishing part of your home- grown food supply. You are inspired by the cookbook Cocina con Algas and look forward to trying out recipes by the Barcelona-based chefs Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casañas at dinner. Then, you take coffee while lounging on a chair 3D printed with bio-waste, while wearing soft, pliable leather made of bacterial cellulose dyed a deep cobalt blue. The concrete walls in your home appear slightly cracked, but it is of no concern as you know microscopic life inside them generates new limestone as a sealant. You cross a bridge supported by a network of living trees on your commute to work in a net-zero office building clad in surfaces that cater to birds and bees. This is a world lush with applied biodesign.
The speculative vision of such a morning harkens back to many childhood fantasies, especially those that unfolded in close contact with ecological systems. They are so abundant, beautiful, and generous, where each system links and provides for another one. The impulses to build a treehouse, fashion clothes from leaves, or make habitats for insects can feel innate when we’re young. So, where did it all go wrong? Was it mass urbanization, or fear driving a desire for control combined with the observations of philosophers like Descartes that deemed non-human life mere machines?
We believe it was a failure of imagination and the internalization of the logic of capitalism that makes a simplified notion of “growth” the answer to every problem. This is the foundation block of the myopic, extractive behavior of people and companies as the agents of markets.
We see Matter Matters as a rekindling of imagination and an examination of materials and practices from an emergent set of new values, made urgent in light of the climate crisis, goals of carbon neutrality, and our shared responsibility to advance social justice.
The good news: it seems that in the last 10 years there has been a marked shift in people’s acceptance of and willingness to participate in the changes suggested above. In the words of many a marketer today: “consumers want this!” And while this may not be the battlecry we’re looking for, it may be the one we deserve and it will have to do. It points to a desire for biologically integrated approaches to making and building, while supporting ecosystems, even enhancing them whenever possible.
And in comes biodesign. Unlike biophilic design, ‘green design,’ or cradle- to-cradle, biodesign refers to the incorporation of living organisms or ecosystems as essential components or processes, enhancing the function of the finished work.
It moves beyond imitation to incorporation, establishing a more active collaboration between the natural and built environments to work with, not against, the innate inclinations of living things and natural materials.
Biodesign, like organisms, exists on scales from macro to micro, the visible to the invisible, drawing on life sciences and collaborations with biologists to fertilize a world of organic matter, natural integration, and sustainability. This contrasts markedly with the industrial ideologies and mechanization which characterized the 20th century; the automation of functions to overpower, isolate, and control forces of nature.
The materials explored here illustrate how designing with biology lends itself to cross-field collaboration, sowing the seeds of a future ripe with cooperation and thoughtful design.
Bio-Structures: Cities Coexisting ‘With’ Their Environment
Vast cities (or at least neighborhoods) across the globe are beginning to embrace the function of native landscapes to coexist with the ebbs and flows of water and other resources. Sponge cities, a concept initially developed by architect Kongjiang Yu, are urban spaces inspired by the natural world to mitigate drought and flooding. The materials here are simple; a toolbox of porous concrete, green roofs, and swales of greenery with permeable layers of soil protect urban infrastructure and create a reservoir. Embracing ecological enhancement the resources required to maintain the urban landscape are reduced, recycling rain runoff in wet season and releasing water to cool the city in dryer months, creating a more temperate environment.
Fab Tree Hab, fabricated from living material by art, architecture and urban design research group Terraform ONE, is a collection of structures designed for human and animal cohabitation. Aiming to prototype a dwelling that integrates seamlessly with the landscape, the firm replaced industrial materials with bio-based alternatives including cedar or jute sealed with beeswax or pine resin to prevent decay. Bioplastic tureens home to flora and fauna line the exterior of the structure, dissolving the boundary between outside and in.
These large-scale biodesigns are deeply ambitious, and often create pause. Is it possible to integrate these materials into our existing infrastructure, or do we need to build from the ground up?
Bio-Building: Living Materials for Architecture
Buildings, roads, sidewalks, and other urban infrastructure often suffers from shifting ground and unsustainable building materials. What if construction materials were more sustainably produced and flexible?
In Barcelona, the Biodigital Architecture program at UIC is bringing together natural and artificial intelligence to apply biological techniques to traditional architecture and design. They have produced Biodigital Architecture Bricks, 3D printed blocks with an inner structure of curves and squiggles like that of coral. Made from clay, the adapted inner structure allows for minimal material while still integrating into existing construction processes.
Concrete, another common construction material, makes up for approximately 7% of the world’s CO2 emissions. Two different sets of minds have created forms of bio- based concrete to address this issue. Snøhetta, a global transdisciplinary design practice, created Biocrete, a carbon neutral concrete substitute that combines wood waste and biochar into concrete, compensating for the CO2 emissions of production. Dutch biologist Hendrik Marius Jonkers created a self-healing concrete that functions like traditional concrete. Incorporated with a limestone-producing bacteria, this bio- crete naturally heals itself, reducing the need for repairs over time.
Bio-Quotidianity: Redefining the Materiality of Objects for Daily Use
Biodesign beyond architecture may make you think of mushroom leather goods produced by Mycoworks, the integration of hydroponic gardens on residential rooftops, or fabric grown from a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) used to make kombucha. These visible demonstrations of biodesign are but one facet of the work.
Biodesign is becoming more visible in our every day. ecoLogicStudio’s AIReactor hosts up to 10 liters of living microalgae in a glass and birch structure to create a photobioreactor capable of absorbing carbon dioxide and pollutants while oxygenating the air. The AIReactor is one of several biophilic design products from ecoLogicStudio that embrace the true circularity of production and use, as the biomass grown from the air purification process becomes raw materials for the Compostable Stool and Bio-Digital Ring as part of the PhotoSynthetica collection.
The Mycelium Chair, by Studio Klarenbeek & Dros, is a 3D printed chair with living fungus growing within it, providing strength. Designed in collaboration with scientists at University of Wageningen, the team developed a new way of printing with living organisms, bringing together the natural and technical world. Klarenbeek believes this material could one day be used to make nearly anything in the future.
Bio-Future: Opportunities for an Ecological Life
Yet the costs of carbon emissions and climate change mount, and they will need to be addressed if a modern way of life, as we’ve come to know it, is to endure. Examples of biodesign profiled here anticipate this change: an accounting for, and eventual minimization of, what economists call negative externalities to the environment —the degradation of the air, soil, water, and life that does not figure into the end cost of manufacturing and building today.
Only under new and sensibly designed constraints, such as a carbon tax on manufacturing, or incentives, such as a subsidy for structures that promote biodiversity, would projects such as Fab Tree Hab, Bio-crete, or matter from the Mycelium Chair become scalable.
Some of these works are brought together with many others in Matter Matters, staging dialogue with objects in the DHub’s historical collection, both pointing the way towards a hopeful future and re-framing the older works.
By situating what ‘matters’ in a new light by proximity, we can see design in a different way, sometimes observing brilliance unrecognized in its time. Herein lies one of the keys to a brighter, more bio-integrated world: growing more sensitive to the limitations of our current conventions.
