wet dreams. living machines

Since my last update my beans have been growing well. After spending this weekend away I got home to find that 3 of my experiments have been successful! The broad beans have found their way out of a dark box to the light, started growing happily inside the plastic tubing and have chosen a path to the light over clear or dark plastic tube.
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The beans in my other experiments are growing well and I hope to be able to start training the growth along a stick and cutting them soon now they are reaching a suitable height.

Last semester back in Kingston we did a short project entitled ‘As If By Magic’ the idea of the project was to invent an imaginary product and present it visually in a short 1 minute film using only basic filming techniques. The best videos manage to tell a simple story that clearly explains the product. Here are a few examples;
Follow The Balloon
Happy Birthday
Clear Grenade
Zebra Crossing

Sometimes I think that a product itself can tell a story or indeed inform us of our surroundings; this is most interesting when it creates interactions with things that we are not normally aware of. The RCA in London run a course called ‘Design Interactions’ which looks critically on how we, human beings interact and use our surroundings. One particular project by Dunne & Raby entitled ‘Placebo’ examines the unseen effects of technology investigating peoples’ attitudes to and experiences of electromagnetic fields in the home.

TV ads seem to be good examples of storytelling as they have to get a message across visually and in a relatively short period of time. Although they don’t necessarily explain how a product works or functions I think we can learn a lot from their style and format. Comedy is used a lot in commercials as it helps to simplify messages and if the ad works well the joke will stick in your mind. This John Smiths ad is a good example.
Some campaigns build up a story over a series of short commercials and so creating an affiliation with their audiences. The Apple Mac adverts did this particularly well in their ‘Mac PC’ series. Each of these ads works as they are simple and informative emphasizing just 1 point each.

I also really like some of the Honda Ads. They don’t so much tell a story but totally captivate the audience in the product.
Honda Accord ‘Cog’ Ad
Honda Civic ‘Choir‘ Ad

So after the presentation I was left feeling a little bit lost as to what to do as my final outcome for this elective. I am still interested in arborsculpture and how it can be used to create products but my big question is what? What I do know is that I need to reduce the ‘what ifs’ in my idea in order to give it a proper grounding as something that is actually possible with today’s technology. This means simplifying both the ides and the final product to one that is achievable.

I first looked at simplifying my growing bicycle idea by designing components (such as the bottom bracket and dropouts) so that a plant could bind onto them. The scenario would be that you set these components into a jig and then grew the frame around them. Once you have outgrown the frame you would break out the components and set them into a new, larger jig using the old frame as nutrients for the new one to grow. I liked the closed loop system here but feel it is still over complicated.

My current train of thought is to go with a simple grown stool as I know this is possible due to existing. My innovation will be in the design of a jig on which to grow the stool allowing anyone to be able to create one. The questions that I now need to address are
- What plant?
- What growing conditions?
- What aesthetic?
- What system- waste materials?

My experiments with training growth are progressing slowly, the broad beans have now been growing for 2 weeks and I am only just starting to see them emerging from the soil so I hope to be able to see how they react in the next couple weeks.
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4/05/08 – I have planted the beans, 3 in each pot in case some don’t germinate! The scenarios I am testing are;
- control
- growth in a tube
- can a plant find its way to the light
- growth along a horizontal path
- options – light/ dark/ tube
- cut to see if growth continues
7/05/08 – No sign of life!
9/05/08 – Still no signs of growth so I dug up a bean and was happy to find that it had sprouted so they seem to be growing.
12/05/08 – First signs of the plants emerging from the soil.

So with the speculative concept idea of growing a product I have been trying to come up with concepts as to how this might work in the future. The main questions that I have been trying to answer are ‘what products could be grown?’ and ‘in what scenario this might occur?’ Possibly housings for items such as televisions could be grown but then you still end up with a dead product.

I really like the idea of making a living product as I think that people will feel a responsibility towards it as a living organism, much like you would with a pet. In turn I hope that this would cause the owner to take care of the product giving it a greater longevity than a standard version. Another concept that I have been thinking about is the idea that you buy an object which then grows with you and so you build a bond over time. The scenario for this that I have come up with is as follows; you buy a bike for a young child, as the child grows you feed the bike nutrients so that it can grow with the child. When the bike is not receiving nutrients it enters a state of suspended animation and will not grow, this therefore allows growth to be checked at the required size.
This idea is totally speculative but could work if it would be possible to cross bamboo’s strong tubular properties with the suspended animation of yeast or lichen. Bamboo bikes have already been made both as cheap modes of transport and more recently as triathlon racing bikes and cross country bikes.

To support these ideas I plan to undertake a few basic experiments. Unfortunately due to the short period of time we have and the fact that we are now heading towards winter I will not be able to try any arborsculpture. So instead this week I have purchased some fast growing broad beans. I have devised a series of small experiments to do with my beans that will hopefully give some credible grounding to my design work. These include;
• Growing a plant in a clear tube to control growth.
• Training a plant to grow horizontally along a stick.
• Growing a plant in a box with one small hole in the top to see if it can find its way out.
• Giving the plant different growing options e.g.; dark, horizontal, vertical to see which path it will chose.
• Cutting the plant to see if growth continues as normal.
• I will also need to have a control plant to ensure that the experiment is fair.

I’ll try to keep posting regular updates of my results.

Since last weeks class I’ve been thinking about how we view and interact with plants. On the one hand they are beautiful natural objects to be cared for and admired and on the other they are the foundation for our race providing us with oxygen, food, materials and fuel (slight sideline but I found this diesel tree while researching arborsculpture- amazing!). However we see none of there attributes as a ‘product,’ instead we use bits of plants to enable us to achieve our goals, whether harvesting grain to make bread or processing trees to build furniture. No whole plant is a complete product as some part is always discarded. In recent years we have found ways to use more of the plants that we exploit and so have increased efficiency. We have also become able to modify the plants to make them more efficient through GM crops. But, would it be possible to genetically modify their form to create a product that uses the living properties of the plant to its advantage?

Currently the only way of achieving this is through controlling the environment in which the plant grows. A good example of this is ‘square watermelons.’ These are no different in make up to regular watermelons but by growing them in a box it forces them to take a cube shape.

Square fruit stuns Japanese shoppers
Square melons on the way

Another way in which the form of plants can be controlled is arborsculpture. As I have mentioned before this is the concept of training a tree to grow into a desired form by cutting and splicing the tree to control the outcome. Though most examples of this are artistic there are a number of examples of chairs, stools, houses and even a boat being grown. These show that growing a complete product is possible but unless it is used without being cut down or dug up then its living properties are not being used to the full. The other issue associated with this is the time it takes to create anything.

I plan to attempt my own arborsculpture on a small scale to see how it is possible to determine plants growth. To do this I will use traditional arborsculpture techniques such as guides and splicing but I also plan to use natural aids such as the phototrophic (tracking sunlight) and gravitrophic (growing up) abilities plants have. I will use these experiments to inform a speculative product design that uses the qualities of a living material and tackles the current issues associated with arborsculpture. Ultimately the design should promote a future where we can grow and develop with our possessions though as yet I do not know what form this will take.

Ok so I’m not really sure where exactly I want to go with this elective as yet. I find that everything I have learnt so far has been interesting and it is a subject that I want to learn as much about it as possible as I currently feel that I don’t understand a lot of what we have covered as much as I’d like to. I think my main interest lies in biomimicry and observing design in the natural world as I am always captivated by what I see happening around me. Seeing how we can mimic nature’s designs appears to be a no-brainer when it comes to sustainability. So other than stalking some ill fated creature in the hope I might have some breakthrough design idea where do I start?
One thought I’ve got is to choose a few basic everyday activities and then seeing how our process for achieving them differs from the processes used in nature. By critically examining each method I will look for ways in which we can learn to be more efficient and sustainable then using this knowledge, I hope to be able to design a product or system by biomimicry for use in modern/future society. As yet I don’t know how ‘blue sky’ this product will be.
I’ve also been thinking about trying some arborsculpture as the idea of growing products really interests me, though I’m not sure how far I would be able to get with this with the time we have. Instead I might simply try to control the form of a plant’s growth using light and guides with the premise of growing products in the future.

As biological and biomimiced products become more known and more widely accessible they will no doubt become integrated into society whether through the products we create or how we go about our daily routine. Recently there has been a lot of hype in the media about ‘environmentalism’ and sustainable living so that the public is now aware and conscious of the impact that they as an individual can have on the planet and so are able to make choices on how they may affect this. However there is little known about where a lot for these sustainable solutions are coming from. I think that knowledge and education about the possibilities of biomimicry are key to this change, the relationships within nature, primarily between organism and environment, can and have already provided us with some good innovations but this will not continue unless people are encouraged to make observations and be more aware of their surroundings.

This week I have been looking at some of the ways in which organisms behave and react to they’re environment. Through this I got onto natural adhesives as this seemed to be the most obvious connection between some life forms and they’re environment as well as providing some interesting design possibilities.

Mussels and other bivalve molluscs have the ability to bind tightly to surfaces in extreme sea conditions. It is only recently that we have discovered how they achieve this. Mussels and produce a natural ‘super glue’ based on a special amino acid, this glue is not only very strong but works in the extreme salt water conditions of the mussel’s habitat. The mussel’s protein based glue has been developed for use as a wood glue particularly in plywood manufacture where it provides a safe, natural alternative to formaldehydes.

Even more impressive than mussel’s protein based glue is that of the bacteria Caulobacter crescentus. This hydrophilic bacterium produces polysaccharides (chains of sugar molecules,) that adhere to multiple surfaces under water. This glue was found to be many times stronger than current man made adhesives needing a force of 70 Newtons per square millimetre to shear the join. This is equivalent to suspending 5 tonnes on a patch of glue about the size of a $1coin! By contrast, commercial ‘super’ glue breaks when a shear force of 18 to 28 Newtons per square millimetre is applied. If an effective method of production can be found then it is hoped that this adhesive could be used as a biodegradable surgical adhesive.

Geckos provide a totally different approach to sticking to surfaces. Instead of using a ‘natural glue’ they have millions of setae (microscopic hairs) on each toe that use Van de Waals force to adhere to the surface. This gives geckos an amazing ability to stick to many surfaces and allows then to walk up walls or even upside down! Scientists at Manchester University have been able to produce ‘gecko tape’ that mimics the characteristics of the gecko’s toes and can be re-stuck a number of times. Although proven the manufacturing process is still very costly and so not currently economically viable though BAE Systems in Bristol claim to have been able to produce larger quantities using photo-lithography that also function underwater.

I think that natural adhesives present a mass of potential within design and manufacturing, materials technology, medical products and systems and have obvious sustainable advantages yet they are often overlooked as they do not present a visible innovation.

The concept of genetic-engineering where we can manipulate or enhance the DNA structure of a living organism and grow or alter features and traits by changing the genetic makeup goes way above my knowledge and understanding as a designer. However, I agree with the article that Boo sent out in that designers have a responsibility to keep up with technological advances as we are often best placed to see possible everyday applications. With today’s global society these new technologies are likely to shape the future for all of us therefore everyone has the right and obligation to get involved in deciding what kind of world we want to create and what kind of world we wish to leave future generations.

I have always been interested in Biomimicry within design as I believe that there is so much we can learn from the natural world. Life on Earth and the systems in which organisms partake in are massively more efficient and sustainable than any replication man creates. The designs we see in nature have been perfected over millions of years of evolution and not only perform brilliantly but do so in a way that preserves the habitat for their offspring. Through simply observing the world around us we will not only find the solutions to a myriad of engineering problems but will learn how to refine existing technologies to increase efficiency becoming more sustainable.
Mongabay.com
ScienceDaily

I am particularly interested in the coincidental observations that have led to some of the most important inventions of our time. Two good examples of this are Velcro and the Catseye.

I have found these links useful in understanding biomimicry;
Biomimicry Institute
TEDtalks – particually Janine Benyus, Ross Lovegrove and Paul Bennett

Finally I have looked briefly at Arborsculpture, the concept of training a tree to grow into a desired form, although this is massively less technical than any genetic engineering project it seems to follow similar principles of cutting and splicing to control the outcome.
Grow your own furniture
Training Growth