A printed glass pavilion, for example, can neither
be designed nor built without first inventing a glass printer;
our biomaterial structures could not have been conceived
without first engineering a robotic platform to build them;
the Silk Pavilion would not have been constructed without
first developing a robotically woven scaffold on which to
spin silk; the Wanderers (see page 318) would have not come
to life without first pioneering high-resolution modelling
of macro-fluidic channels and the ability to print them.
I look for design opportunities where this
relationship is entangled. Where the technique defines an
expression as much as the expression defines the technique.
This is also how Nature works: note the growth of trees,
the formation of the glass sponge; the swarm intelligence
of bees and ants, and the birth of planets.
In the end, my team operates as a ‘predictive
practice’, a laboratory, in which the future of design is being
actively and empirically created, not merely questioned.
We don’t regard ourselves as problem solvers, but as solution
finders to problems that do not yet exist.
Growing Buildings
Although existing biological organisms are impressive in
their capacity to engage spatial and temporal growth as
well as material variation, we are intrigued by the potential
to design biology itself through synthetic biology methods.
Such techniques focus on genetic engineering by designing
gene pathways with logic structures analogous to electrical
and computer engineering. Using the biological equivalents
(or transcription factors) of logic gates (such as ‘And’,
‘Not’, and ‘Or’ gates), genetic circuits can be designed
and constructed within organisms.
My group’s current research in the area of synthetic
biology focuses on fabrication systems and mechanical
means of combining top-down digital controls with bottom-
up biological growth. Early work has generated inkjet
distribution heads for printing cells, genetically modified
cell lines for tunable biofilm growth, and mathematical
models for using light to trigger fabrication gene pathways
in cell lines for potential 3D-printing techniques. In the
near future, 3D printers will function with biological resins
capable of complex parallelised growth with responsive
temporal and spatial properties.
By bringing together design and technology, we can,
in effect, edit biology – and create physical objects that point
to the shape of things to come. Designs that combine top-
down form generation with bottom-up growth of biological
systems open up big opportunities. They enable us to make
things that are truly dynamic: products and building parts
that can grow, heal, and adapt with high degrees of spatial
resolution in manufacturing. Ultimately, cells are simply
small, self-replicating machines. If we can engineer them
to perform useful tasks, simply by adding sugar and growth
media, we can dream up new worlds.Raison d’Être
To younger generations of designers and architects, I profess
that design is neither a profession nor a discipline; it is an
acquired taste in synthesis. A good designer can, by virtue
of design – the noun and the verb – not only solve problems
but also seek them out, long before they emerge. Design,
like language itself, conveys meaning through the creation
of wholes that are bigger than the sum of their parts. And
when a tight connection exists between method and form,
technique and expression, process and product, one can
enter the realm of the generative, where design transcends
problem solving and becomes a system of thinking about
making to attack any world problem.
Material Ecology – the design approach and its
related areas of research – is therefore not limited to any
categorical delineation: achieving world peace, eliminating
poverty or curing cancer. Rather, I consider my design
approach – its theoretical foundations and principles, along
with its collection of tools, techniques, and technologies –
a system by which to address manifold issues, across scales
and disciplines, from curing malaria to populating Mars. ∂MIT Media Lab. Left and centre are
Amherst Street views of Building
E 1 4, d e s i g n e d b y P r i t z k e r P r i z e -
winning architect Fumihiko Maki in
- Far right is the original,
1985, Wiesner Building (Building
E15), designed by MIT Alumnus
I M P e i , a l o n g s i d e B u i l d i n g E 1 4
Images: © Andy Ryan
∑ 303
Neri Oxman