In June 1994, when the initial Boeing 777 prototype flew its first test run, human engineering reached a new milestone.

Unlike any airplane before it, the 777 was designed in a computer without a full-scale mockup. Five thousand engineers in 26 countries collaborated on the design of the project. Digital models of the airplane parts were simulated and pre-assembled virtually. Every piece fit together perfectly, and during the test run the physical plane flew exactly as the digital model predicted. Less than a hundred years after the Wright Brothers flew the first-ever prototype airplane, humans had developed such command over the science of aerodynamics and the performance of complex mechanical systems that they could engineer a 250-ton, $350-million machine from first principles—scientists’ and engineers’ foundational understanding about how the world functions [1].

Today, a quest for the command of complexity and the application of first principles continues to drive the design of airplanes, and also the design of the built environment. But design from first principles is not the only way to design—especially when it comes to biology.

While the field of synthetic biology has made staggering progress in designing new lifeforms from scratch through first principles and a command of DNA science and technology, the field of biodesign offers an alternative approach, which may produce results that are less predictable and more emergent. As synthetic biology—with its metaphor of bringing the reliable modularity of electrical engineering to biology—offers a thrilling direction for biodesign that is yielding promising applications, biodesign can go in other directions and draw on references besides airplanes, electrical circuits, and first principles.

In January 2011, the province of South Holland dumped 20 million cubic meters of sand in one spot on the beach. The project was called the Sand Engine, and it represented a new approach to nourishing the coast and preventing erosion. Until this point, the standard approach to coastline management involved spreading a relatively small amount of sand evenly along the coast every five years. But coastlines are dynamic rather than static. The tides and the winds are ever-changing. Sand doesn’t stay where it is supposed to, and it often ends up being washed away quickly and unevenly. So the new idea was to deposit a massive amount of sand in one place and then allow natural currents to distribute it along a 20-kilometer-long stretch of coast over 20 years, and therefore, maintain the coast with lower cost and less environmental destruction.

This was a different kind of design and engineering. Rather than place sand exactly where replenishment was needed, the interdisciplinary team in Holland placed sand in a strategic location that would allow the wind and tides to push it gradually towards regions of erosion. Rather than receiving all of the sand at once, the damaged zone would consume a steady diet of sand over many years. Instead of design with complete control, this involved design with uncertainty and just enough directional guidance. The process was more like growing a garden than like building a dam. And while it is too early to see all of the results, it is already clear that nourishing lagoons, channels, and low beach cliffs have emerged over the first ten years of the experiment.

Biodesign has reached a crossroads—should it follow the 777 model, the Sand Motor model, or a completely new model? One path involves “drop-in solutions.” This means taking a system like automobile transportation and replacing a component that is problematic—like gasoline that generates carbon pollution—with an improved component—like renewable biofuel that is carbon neutral. The improved component can be dropped into existing cars and gas stations, which allows it to be immediately useful. 

But there are alternative models for applications. Instead of designing a fuel that fits perfectly with today’s cars and gas stations, perhaps we could design new cars altogether in a way that radically reimagines transportation. The same holds true for architecture. Perhaps we could design new buildings and new cities in ways that radically reimagine living. Perhaps this version of biodesign that involves reinvention could be called deep biodesign. 

It is now July 2020, and the status quo has never looked worse and incremental change has never seemed less sufficient. There has never been a better time for a design revolution.

In order to address multiple overlapping crises and promote a regenerative and just world, we need strong levers of change. Let’s use deep biodesign as one of these levers. This may involve harnessing actual living organisms to compute, sense, and fabricate our built environment. It may involve design of dynamic systems rather than fixed objects. It may involve bricks that are self-healing and literally alive. Piers made of bivalves that clean the water and report on environmental health. Facades that host microbes. Probiotic buildings. Multi-species architecture. Artificial intelligence plus natural intelligence. A glucose economy. So many experiments, so much reimagining. As with all transformative change, a new generation will lead the way. Deep biodesign is up to us.

[1] Carlson, Robert H. “Learning to Fly.” Biology Is Technology: the Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life, Harvard University Press, 2010.

Cite This Essay
Benjamin, David. “Deep Biodesign.” Biodesigned: Issue 2, 16 July, 2020. Accessed [month, day, year].