In 1964 in America, in a moment when design trended toward the modern, minimal elegance seen in curved metal and repeated geometric forms, industry leaders gathered at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado.
The writer Ralph Caplan joined a panel there, which asked, what are the best expressions of design of the era? Caplan’s answer stood out: the lunch-counter sit in was his choice.
To the late design critic, the act of peaceful protest held at segregated restaurants demonstrated economy and grace fit to purpose, spotlighting racist policy and winning support for change. Caplan considered the brave participants creators of what he called “situation design.” Today it might be called social design, which is geared toward altering people’s behavior or perception. Of course, it is also activism against systemic racism. To me, biodesign is a practice related to the idea of social design set on a longer timescale. Its effects are not immediately clear as when one erects a building in steel, or selects the perfect typeface for a poster. Biodesign is instead a method for improving the relationships within and between species.
The work of biodesign cultivates interspecies empathy while building knowledge of biological systems and the intricate interdependencies in the environment. It leads one to imagine the ecosphere simply bursting with undiscovered opportunity for collaboration and integration. And biodesign’s inherent difficulties, working with matter that is at turns fussy and wet, invites serendipity and the surrendering of control, as in a dance where the leaders alternate.
My own entry into the field began with making sourdough bread, wine, and beer, coming to marvel at the power of a simple yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and then learning that these were only a tiny fraction, around 1,500 or one percent, of the entire fungi group known as yeast that has been genetically examined by biologists [1].
If a single species could help deliver all the magic and cultural significance of viticulture and dough fermentation to civilization, who could imagine the possibilities just beyond reach? I considered this while finding just the right way to get the crumb structure on my olive-rosemary bread, and took pride in the fact that my craft creation was far better than the dry, tasteless industrial loaves in supermarkets.
In a happy coincidence, I learned these skills while searching for a topic for my masters thesis where I found designers doing something that resonated with my hobby. That is, they were trying to replace off-the-shelf, industrial solutions by integrating biology with craft. Some designers resurrected ancient methods of making, while others embraced emerging biotechnologies. What seemed to unify them was an earnest desire to re-envision how we make, to set aside fossil-fuel based production with processes that integrate with ecosystems, or at least not harm them. This led me to write Biodesign in 2012.
Biodesign has the potential to produce replacements for mechanical or fossil-fuel-based designs and introduce biofabricated materials. People are acquainted with applications such as spider silk dresses or algae fuels. Biodesign also can provide ecosystem enhancements, foundational space for species to thrive, such as in the Modular Artificial Reef Structure (MARS) by Alex Goad. Finally, it can speculate on the future. For example, Quantworm Mine by Liv Bargman and Nina Cutler, imagines a future where giant worms remediate toxic land while transforming contaminants into useful quantum dots.
Biodesign is also a critical perspective, a way to see all design as an act that initiates systems. These systems inevitably affect life, even in unintended ways. Thus, the keyboard or phone in your hand is a work of biodesign, in a way, as it is part of a system of resource extraction, production, transport, purchase, use, and disposal that imposes conditions on all sorts of living things, from workers in a factory to the bacteria that will one day try in vain to gnaw at its plastic shell. The critical perspective asks, What is the impact of the design decisions on all the living beings it touches?
To make all such impacts as positive as possible from an ecological and social perspective, we might expect designers to deeply and broadly consider the lifecycle of whatever their making. Or, what I favor, is to apply sensible regulation to steer design towards socially and environmentally positive results. If anyone thinks this is radical, consider the regulations against lead paint, asbestos, or CFCs [2]. Restricting their use did not negate interior design, architecture, or refrigeration, but only made each different. Parameters pique creativity in a designer even if incumbents and lobbyists decry them as stifling. A carbon tax, for example, is one such sensible approach. An incentive for design that helps support biodiversity is another. These are just two ways that biodesign would suddenly become more viable and break out of the prototype phase where so many worthy ideas now remain.
As of December 2020, a breakthrough in biotechnology is poised to accelerate the use of synthetic biology across fields from material technology and medicine to food. AlphaFold, a machine learning project from Deepmind, has shown astounding capability to predict the shape of proteins by their composition of amino acids. Since the 3D structure of a protein determines its function, this tool may digitalize research done through trial and error in vivo [3]. When combined with other new tools such as CRISPR, it is thrilling to imagine the possibilities.
The acceleration of biotechnology comes with promise and peril that invites us to consider what has come before. The digital revolution and the rise of the internet over the last 20 years, for instance, delivered fantastic gains to society in areas not predicted. It has also worsened inequalities, diminished privacy, concentrated monopolistic power, and enabled the spread of misinformation. Can the biotech revolution do better? Can we move closer to achieving social and environmental justice? Or will we use it to make extractive capitalism bigger and faster?
These difficult questions bring me back to my definition of biodesign: a practice that cultivates empathy across species and is fueled by cross-disciplinary cooperation. The more we do this and learn to collaborate instead of exploit, the more prepared we should be to wield biotechnology responsibly. “There is a difference between making things right and making things nice,” Ralph Caplan wrote. “The designer’s mission is to make things right” [4].
[1] “Yeast.” New World Encyclopedia, 15 Oct 2020. Accessed 9 March 2021.
[2] Office of Environmental Quality. “The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer.” Accessed 9 March 2021.
[3] Callaway, Ewen. “‘It will change everything’: DeepMind’s AI makes gigantic leap in solving protein structures.” Nature, November 30, 2020.
[4] Quito, Anne. “Design critic Ralph Caplan saw the 1960s lunch counter sit-in as the era’s greatest design.” Quartz, June 13, 2020.
William Myers is a curator, author, and teacher based in Amsterdam. Published by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Thames & Hudson worldwide, his book Biodesign (2018) identifies the emerging practice of integrating biological processes into design and architecture. His book Bio Art: Altered Realities (2015) profiles art that uses biology in new ways or responds to advances in the life sciences which disrupt our concepts of identity, nature, or the definition of life.
Cite This Essay
Myers, William. “What Biodesign Means to Me.” Biodesigned: Issue 6, 17 March, 2021. Accessed [month, day, year].
