Designing with Organisms
Art, design and bioculture
We're building an urban farm, experimenting with new forms of energy, and exploring biotechnology and eco-culture through art, community and design.
MartaAlgae as potential to extract bio-oil
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This kind of bio-oil can be used for automobile and vessels. Image found on Yanko Design's website
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Sustainable project by : yi liu + Luo Jing + Jiang Yu-ning. Image found on Yanko Design's website.
Green Transformer design by Yi liu + Luo Jing + Jiang Yu-ning is a solar powered floating device that combines algae with a chemical additive and derives bio-oil on the spot. It is a split-type product and the oil tank can be separated from the main body.
Eco-Pod
Temporary vertical algae bio‐reactor
Eco‐Pod made by prefabricated modules. The pods will serve as bio‐fuel sources and as micro‐incubators for flexible research and development programs.
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"Eco-Pod project by Höweler + Yoon Architecture and Squared Design Lab" -
The Eco‐Pod is also a research incubator in which scientists can test algae species and methods of fuel extraction. Image found on Höweler + Yoon Architecture's website.
Eco-Pod project by Höweler + Yoon Architecture and Squared Design Lab is a proposal for the integration of architecture, new technologies and public space in an ecologic way.
Micro‐algae is one of the most promising bio‐fuel crops of today, yielding over thirty times more energy per acre than any other fuel crop. Unlike other crops, algae can grow vertically and on non‐arable land, is biodegradable, and may be the only viable method by which we can produce enough automotive fuel to replace the world’s current diesel usage. Algae farming...
Photoelectric bites
Temporary photoElectric Digestopians Worklab Series
Edible Solarcells
Bartaku's project fused cooking and solar tech. It consist of experimentations on the transformation of light energy into electric energy with food. Often photovoltaic-tech is compared with the plant leaf's capacity of harvesting the Sun's energy. But there is only one type of PV-cell that mimics significantly the natural process of photosynthesis: the natural Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (nDSC). It is made of the dyes of anthocyanin or carotenoid-rich fruits like berries, currants, black beans etc., some titanium-dioxide (cf. white paint, toothpaste) some graphite or carbon and an electrolyte, ...
Moss table
Biophotovoltaic energy
The Moss Table is a conceptual design intended to demonstrate the potential of Biophotovoltaic technology and how it might be applied in the future.
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Prototype Biophotovoltaic devices have recently been constructed and tested in the laboratory, but a great deal of research is required in order to develop BPV into a commercially viable technology. Low cost BPV devices may become competitive alternatives to conventional renewable technologies such as bio-fuels in the next 10 years. Image found on Designboom's website by Alex Driver and Carlos Peralta, together with scientist Paolo Bombelli, all of them from Cambridge University.
What is the Moss Table?
The Moss Table is a concept product which demonstrates a potential future application of BPV technology.
What is BPV?
BPV stands for Bio-Photo-Voltaic. BPV devices generate electricity from light energy by exploiting the photosynthesis of living organisms such as cyanobacteria, moss, algae and vascular plants.
What does the Moss Table do?
The table incorporates an array of BPV devices which generate electricity. At present the energy generated by the table is not used to power anything. Instead an animation has been created which res...
Fish&Chips Apparatus
Machine, human, environment, computer, will co-design and co-evolve into new artificial living systems.
The "Fish&Chips Apparatus" fits into the context of International Exhibition design “Spontaneous Schooling”, with the participation of 86 architectural workshops around the world.
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- 60 lt. tropical fish tank furnished with:
_heating system
_filtration system
_lasercutted cover
_interactive floating feeders
-25 tropical fishes
_1 arduino board with lasercutted holder
_16 flex sensors with custom dedicated circuit board
_1 lasercutted food holder
-custom codes and digital parametric models.
-apparatus diagram and coral gardens original digital drawings.Picture found on ecoLogicStudio's website
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Fishes swim around floating feeders agitating them and producing small and high frequency waves. The sensors are recording waves frequency in real time while the waves patterns and therefore fish colonies patterns are read by a parametric modelling software generating an ever evolving design output. The digital gardens drawings become interactive maps of the fish colonies daily behavior, of the visitors feeding patterns and the designer reaction to them both.
Fermented Fashion
“Microbes à la mode”
The Micro‘be’ project investigates the practical and cultural biosynthesis of microbiology – to explore forms of futuristic dress-making and textile technologies.
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These organic textiles produce their own colour and structure, providing an eco-friendly “conceptual” alternative to cloth manufacturing – drawing attention to environmental conservation. Picture by Gary Cass found on Bioalloy's website
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First project: Fibre reactive -
Fashioned from the mycelium and fruiting bodies of the fungus. Artist: Donna Franklin, 2004. Photo by Robert Firth and courtesy of SymbioticA.
In contrast to the first project Fibre Reactive fashioned from the mycelium and fruiting bodies of the fungus, (Pycnoporus cockiness), Microbe fermented wear will be produced by biological fermentation. Hence this Micro’be’ textile differs in discourse conceptually/visually and biologically as it utilises bacterial waste rather than living fungal cells.
The project Microbe by Donna Franklina & Gary Cass aims to develop innovative researc...
Bio-machine
Jurema Action Plant by Ivan Henriques
Mimosa pudica is the sensitive plant that interact with the customized machine.
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Preview Exam at Hoop Gallery, Den Haag / NL 2011. -
To measure the Action Potential from the plant some electrodes are placed in its branches. When the leaves and branches of the plant are touched this signal changes. Picture by Katherine Cuningham found on Ivan Henriques' website.
Like humans, animals and machines, the plants have an electrical signal traveling inside them, but they do not have nerves like humans and animals; nor wires and cables like machines. This electrical signal travels inside the cells of the plant. In collaboration with professor Bert van Duijn from the Biology University and the Hortus Botanicus on a research into the Action Potential of this plant they settled upon a solution in which a signal amplifier reads the differences in the electromagnetic field around the plant to determine wh...
The Urban Space Station
Open urban agriculture and parasite architecture project
USS is the first prototype at 40% of the "real one" designed by Natalie Jeremijenko and Angel Borrego , performed by Cesar Harada in Reina Sofia Museum Madrid.
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Sketch for Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. Picture by Cesar Harada found on Flickr's website.
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The Cactus Project
Transformation processes
C-LAB's work explores a reproductive paradox in genetic engineering to introduce hair keratin genes into cells of cacti.
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The work makes use of agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer to introduce hair keratin genes into cells of cacti. Picture by Laura Cinti found on C-LAB's website.
"Bioart is an alternative exploration that diverge aims conventionally found in disciplines. For me, it is the metamorphosing of an idea into our world, allowing art to become living and part of our communication. The Cactus Project is not just about the scientific output (tools and processes); it’s also to do with the interaction the work has with our culture." Interview with Laura Cinti and Howard Boland from C-LAB on We make money not art.
Urban Eden, human error
Bio-architectural constructions out of moss and seeds
Allison Kudla's project based on the formation of a living and growing biological material via its collaboration with an engineering mechanism.
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Engineering mechanism to generate the artwork. -
The project was presented in Linz, Austria for the Ars Electronica Festival 2010 as part of the show “Repair” sponsored by the OK Center and exhibited in the former Tabak Fabrik. Image by Miha Fras found on Allison Kudla's website.
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This work was selected for Honorary Mention in Hybrid Arts for Ars Electronica 2010. It also received Honorary Mention for Vida 13.0, the competition for Art and Artificial Life. Image by Miha Fras found on Allison Kudla's website.
This system uses a computer controlled four-axis positioning table to “print” intricate bio-architectural constructions out of moss and seeds. Suspended in a clear gel growth medium, the moss continues to grow and the seeds sprout.
The algorithmically-generated patterns drawn by the system are based on the Eden growth model and leverage mathematical representations of both urban growth and cellular growth, thereby connecting the concept of city with the concept of the organism.
Barbara
Anna
Maurizio
Sander
