ISSUE 03: It’s Alive!
→ Biodesign of consumer goods is nearing
→ Architecture and products can be grown, cultivated, and maintained as living organisms
→ What might this mean for the future of ownership (caretaking)?
→ How might we “shop” for biodesigns in the future?
In the upcoming world of consumer goods, you may end up with a new type of item for which you have to care: your furniture and home decor. Now, we’re not talking about simply giving them a wipe down or a light dusting. What we’re talking about is taking the time to feed your belongings to keep them alive. Your dinning room chair becomes your new Tamagotchi, and look - your living room lamp has grown over a foot since you got it.T his issue takes a look at the growing trend of living products (pun intended).
A
What Was
Grown products are, as the name implies, things that have been grown and cultivated instead of manufactured. Historically, the production of consumer goods has been dictated by the market’s desire for maximum time efficiency and product consistency. This gave rise of mass production techniques that utilizes standardized (often human made) materials. There are many reasons why the use of non-living materials is the norm: exploring them all wouldn’t be useful. Let’s just say that there are general material and production considerations that have led us to where we are today.
John Krubsack sitting in his grown chair. | Public Domain
Building furniture out of wood requires that a tree be felled, cut, and dried… or does it? Back in 1903, John Krubsack planted the seeds of what would become the world’s first grown (not built) chair. It took 11 years to grow to shape, having been harvested in 1914 and exhibited at the World’s Fair. Today a British company called Full Grown is looking to revive the concept. They’re a furniture manufacturer that specializes in growing furniture from trees. Though the chairs’ form is grown organically, the trees are nevertheless harvested to produce the final chair. If you’re looking for a chair that’s alive, you can take a look at Studio Nucleo that produces the Terra Armchair which is a cardboard framework for an earth chair (fill the frame with dirt and plant with grass to create an armchair that becomes part of the landscape). It’ll be a lush and green seat, but you also won’t be able to move it. You win some, you lose some.
B
What Is
Grown materials
If we switch our focus onto the present, we will find many other examples of companies, studios, artists and designers exploring the use of living organisms for product and material design. From living fabrics to 3D printing with seeds, the possibilities seem nearly endless. The traditional way of using organisms to form products is by designing a scaffold on which the material can grow or frame which it will fill.
This is how mycelium bricks are being produced. For those unfamiliar with the term ‘mycelium’ it simply means mushroom or fungi. The mycelium is invited to grow in a brick shaped mould, then once filled, the bricks are dried or baked to stabilize them. Mycelium bricks are 100% organic, non-toxic, insulating, compostable, and biodegradable. On top of that, they are also resistant to water, mold, and fire (once dried). The development of new fungal biomaterials is advancing every day, with stronger materials being designed and new processes being refined, but as of now mycelium is leading the way.
The Hy Fy was a mycelium brick structure that was erected in front of MoMA PS1 in 2014. A project conceived by The Living Embodied Computation Lab, it was built in Queens, New York using bricks made from old crop materials (corn husks) and mycelium. The structure used 10,000 bricks that were then composted and turned back into soil at the end of the three month exhibit. This demonstrates the circularity of grown materials. Building materials provide the nutrients for the next batch of grown materials.
Living materials
Now there’s definite crossover between grown products and living materials, but here we’ll briefly take a look at materials like paint, coatings, and fabrics that are composed of living organisms. Through careful selection or genetic manipulation, specific organisms can be used to create specific colours, materials, and textures.
Whether it’s a living fabric that’s able to purify the air (as seen in Roya Aghighi’s Biogarmentry project) or a bio-responsive algae facade (like Arup’s SolarLeaf project), many are exploring the use of algae as a design material.
Or there’s bacterial paint. A team from the University of Cambridge together with a company called Hoekmine BV have explored the use of flavobacteria colonies to genetically engineer the production of bright and iridescent colours. The researchers say this could lead to organic, biodegradable, and non-toxic paints/coatings that are made by living organisms.
Beyond aesthetic or air purifying qualities, another advantage of having living organisms embedded in a material is that it can provide self-healing properties. This can be used for soft materials like fabrics or hard, structural materials like pavement or concrete. For fabrics, researchers have developed a special type of textile with self-healing qualities by using proteins found in the rings of teeth of squid suckers. Once the material is ripped and dipped in water it was able to bond itself shut in less than a minute. For other types of self-healing materials, we’re seeing organisms embedded within the material. If a crack appears, the organisms respond to the air and grow to fill the void, thereby fixing itself. This could become an important design consideration for infrastructure of the future (goodbye potholes?).
C
What Next
So, what’s next? Well, quite a bit. Startups and research groups around the world are looking at ways of making grown products easier, cheaper, and faster to produce.
Some are looking at ways to use 3D printing to print living scaffolds or to embed organisms directly into the printing filament. GROWLAY is an example of a 3D printing filament that acts as a breeding ground for various seeds or spores. We can imagine that in the not too distant future, it will become more mainstream to print using natural, organic materials and potentially finishing them with special sprays of bacteria or spores to harden and protect them.
We’re also seeing more indications that biodesigners will become a more popular profession. A biodesigner would be someone who knows how to mesh the worlds of biology, ethics, and design to create the next generation of grown or living products. Highly specialized biodesigners would have extensive knowledge of material sciences as well as genetic engineering. This would help them be hired by companies to create proprietary organisms that can be grown to design specifications.
Now for something that’s a little bit more out there: plants as sources of lights. When we think of plants or trees, we don’t think of them as sources of light, yet this could change thanks to the research being done by MIT. Researchers there have created plants that can emit a soft glow at night, and endlessly charge themselves. It’s quite literally renewable green energy.
D
What If
Now’s the time to take all that we know and speculate about various future events. What if this were to happen, or what about this? This is where the magic happens. Let your imagination run wild. Here are a few thought starters:
Incubators & feeding rituals
With a house full of living products that need constant care, some of our appliances would no doubt need to change with the times. Our washing machines may be replaced with clothes incubators, where special lights help rejuvenate and clean your textiles. Your kitchen cupboards may be equipped with special incubators to keep your plates and dishes fresh and clean. And your couch? Well don’t forget to spray it with its monthly dose of feed.
Design seeds
What if you bought your design items as seeds and had to incubate them? Your cupboard is full of fullgrown Bactocila americano and your favourite armchair is a Loungenii eamesa that took you 15 years to grow. Furthermore, what if different types of products were only available in different climates? That chair you admire, well it can only survive in a Northern European climate. Tough luck if you want to move to a different country, best leave your belongings behind.
Bioluminescent elements
Finally, what if (as we saw earlier), the plants that surround us start to absorb new functions. What if the neighbourhood’s trees acted as the city’s street lamps, and your houseplants became your evening lamps? We could also see the actual materials of buildings react to environmental pollution (air quality) and more impressively, change colours with the seasons. An entire city could become yellow in the fall, red in the winter, a riot of colour in the spring, and a lush green over the summer.
Forest showrooms
What if a brick organism is placed in the wild and starts populating our natural environment? In this strange world, parts of our natural environments have become “infected” by human made natural designs. Imagine a little forest clearing filled with naturally grown plant chairs and table trees. We’d have to be constantly watching for the unintentional pollution of our environment with our genetically modified products.
In other cases, people may resort to simply leaving their old grown furniture behind in natural environments in the hopes that they decompose quickly. This would lead to grown product dumping grounds, filled with crumbling furniture, products, and construction materials. Or, as we see with invasive species, your table lamp could disrupt the local ecosystem.
E
So What
With these three simple future speculations, what type of insights can we pull from it? This is where we gain our foresight, by using our critical muscles to tease out what’s good, bad, and unforeseen (or should be thought about some more).
Positives
Less construction and manufacturing waste
If buildings and products are grown to size, there would be less material and construction waste as only what’s grown is needed and used.
Unique, heirloom items
No two items are exactly alike. This may increase the likelihood of emotional attachment to a product and provide certain items with an heirloom quality.
Grown on site
If items are able to be grown on site, it would require less international shipping of construction materials which would in turn reduce emissions. It would also reduce the need for concrete and steel - both significant contributors to the construction industry’s environmental impact.
Lifecycle depends on care
The lifecycle of your product, garment, or building depends on the care you give it. This would encourage a more caring consumer culture (less throwaway consumerism) with possible support and product care centres.
Carbon sequestration
Some living materials would be capable of filtering and/or sequestering carbon emissions as they grow.
Compostable
Organic, grown products can be planted or returned to the earth at the end of its lifecycle, reducing the need for large waste management facilities.
Negatives
Bacterial Infections (natural)
Your products or buildings could become compromised by a bacterial infection, thereby compromising its structural integrity. Something in the natural environment could start to attack buildings.
Bacterial Attack
Buildings that need to be “torn down” or demolished could be sprayed with a special type of bacteria that would attack the living structures. Of course, in the hands of the wrong person, a building or product could just as easily be compromised/attacked by a rogue agent.
Pest Control
It is possible that having more natural and living materials would attract pests and vermin to either nest in our structures or eat them.
Itchy Sweater
Depending on what type of living fabrics are used/developed, there’s a possibility that clothes become sticky, itchy, or smelly in different conditions.
Slower Production
Having to grow products would take considerable time for it to grow, mature, and stabilize into a finished product. Given the current pace of economic trade, this slow-goods production could create tension in the eyes of the consumer.
Expensive Products
Given the amount of time and resources it would take to grow an item, the resulting products could be prohibitively expensive.
Other considerations
New types of IP
The Industrial Design (Design Patent) would need to be modified to include Biological Expression Patents, as designers would be creating the expression of a design through grown means. This means that the design is protected even though each resulting grown product is completely unique in its composition, texture, and particular colour combination.
Feed Your Things
Don’t forget to feed your building or your furniture from time to time to keep the living materials happy!
Mega Greenhouses
In order to produce large scale grown items, large facilities would be required to incubate and grow these products.
Boycotts
One could imagine a distant future where those opposing the godlike control of other lifeforms for human exploitation leading to a boycott of genetically engineered and grown consumer products.
This concludes our short issue on biodesign and grown/living materials. How do you see the field evolving? Is there anything you’re particularly looking forward to? Anything you’re wary of? Let us know in the comments.