Formalizing Infinite Properties: Beyond Functionalism in Design

Designing Matter, Essay, Laia Mogas Soldevila, No Density, Silklab, Technology and fabrication

Bio-engineering, Biodegradable, Biological structures, Biotech, Design, Designing Matter, Digital design, Digital fabrication, Engineering, Environment, Essay, Functional ecology, Industrial revolution, Innovation, Natural materials, Nature, New materials, New paradigms, Organism, Research, Strategies, Structure, Sustainability, Technology

These materials and methods were developed at the Tufts University Living Materials Silklab, led by Dr. Fiorenzo Omenetto, and are part of a current effort to bridge science, technology, and art with design and the fabrication of living material everyday products. They were commissioned and supported in part by the Art and Science seed fund from the Office of the President at Tufts and by the U.S. Office of Naval Research and were performed in collaboration with the Center for Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

The world of advanced materials is a highly competitive arena, but there is one company that could never fail. (…) That company is Life, and its materials the most advanced on the planet. — Phillip Ball [1]


Re-programming Function
In the late 1800s, the architect Luis Sullivan aimed to reinvent ornament, moving away from artifice and toward forms true to matter, in defense of a re-integration of form and function [2], [3].