BioxDesign

Our experience of teaching and practicing design with living organisms has demonstrated that some design assumptions are deeply rooted in the consciousness not only of designers, but also biologists and industrial partners. Organisms are often seen as sterile, perfect, more efficient, and generally a better alternative to existing systems. These tropes often fail to inspire creative, innovative and relevant expressions of biodesign and, instead, motivate projects that inhabit an ideal world, sometimes overly engineering to ensure control. In this paper, we discuss these assumptions and discuss potential alternatives for new models of design based on less controlled bio-based forms of production. We draw attention to what we perceive as an urgent need to acknowledge and even praise the messiness, unpredictability, and reality of living organisms.