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Bio-digital ‘Material Systems’: New Hybrid Ways for Material-Driven Design Innovation

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Biomimetics, Biodesign and Bionics

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Abstract

New bio-digital potentials make it possible to analyse and reproduce the generative, chemical, physical and molecular processes underlying the living, leading designers to interpret them through design and envisioning skills to foster the sustainable and digital transition. In particular, the combination of advanced manufacturing with the transformative possibilities of matter leads to alternative ways of conceiving and producing artefacts inspired by the constructive strategies of nature, the materials it uses and how it manipulates them. The chapter aims to describe how this leads to an extension of computational and biological properties to matter itself, with the possibility of designing specific functional and expressive characteristics of materials for innovative and sustainable applications. Five experiments developed within Sapienza’s Saperi&Co research centre will be described which the goal was to produce bio-digital ‘material systems’ in which – just as in nature – material, product and performance are designed as a single entity through information, growth and adaptation to context.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Formal geometric studies have united biology, applied arts and architecture since the eighteenth century (Durand, Viollet Le Duc, Greenough, Semper, Sullivan, D’Arcy W. Thompson, Steadman). An exemplification of the formal approach is, for example, the work of Violet le Duc who, using studies on organic structures such as animal skeletons or bat wings, supported by a study of forces and weights, creates rational structural systems (as in Assembly Hall project), which first influenced Art Nouveau and in particular Hector Guimard, up to Louis Sullivan and Frank LloydWright.

  2. 2.

    As for Munari [6].

  3. 3.

    From an interview in Repubblica, 2 March 2010.

  4. 4.

    From a 2011 interview by A. Coppa: www.livinginterior.it/interno-a-patriciaurquiola/0,1254,58_ART_3868,00.html

  5. 5.

    Mathieu Lehanneur is a French designer very successful in the biomimicry field who has concentrated his most recent activity on studying the interactions between the body and the environment, living systems and the scientific world, combining organic materials with digital technologies. Among his best-known projects is ‘Andrea’ (2008), the air purifier that works with plants.

  6. 6.

    This is the field of action of ‘hybrid design’, i.e. the design approach that aims to transfer to the design of innovative products and services the complexity inherent in the logic and principles of the biological world as sort of ‘new genetic code’ [8].

  7. 7.

    The term ‘post-human’ or ‘trans-human’ was born within ‘cyber delicate’ niches and the new age subculture to establish itself definitively thanks to the Post Human exhibition created by Jeffrey Deitch in 1992, which brings together an artistic production of the 1980s dedicated to the theme of the self and the body.

  8. 8.

    Khanna and Khanna [9] talk about ‘tecnik’, that is, the union of the deterministic (mechanical + scientific) and the constructivist dimensions (which deals with the effects on men and society).

  9. 9.

    The Bohemian writer Karel Capek coined the term robot and etymologically means ‘toil’.

  10. 10.

    Analog bionics operates through a procedure which, starting from the description of the process (analysis) and passing through the translation of the biological description into a physical-mathematical scheme, arrives at the concrete realisation of the scheme (through synthesis carried out with an electronic device) in order to constitute an analogical model. On the contrary, dynamic bionics can capture nature’s adaptation and development strategies to transform them into actions.

  11. 11.

    The IIT presented ICub at the Genoa Science Festival in 2009, after a series of increasing complexity prototypes based on research begun in 2003.

  12. 12.

    Specifically, the projects ‘The Pig Wings’ (Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr, 2000–2001), pig mesenchymal tissue cells used for biodegradable/bioabsorbable polymers (PGA, P4HB) and ‘Victimless Leather. Prototype of Stitchless Jacket grown in a Technoscientific Body’ (2004), biodegradable polymers, bone and connective tissue cells.

  13. 13.

    We specify that:

    For the ‘ScobySkin Patches’ project, the research team was composed of Sabrina Lucibello, Carmen Rotondi, Chiara Del Gesso, Lorena Trebbi (Department of Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome), Daniela Uccelletti, Emily Schifano (Department of Biology and Biotechnology ‘C. Darwin’, Sapienza University of Rome), Luciano Fattore and Riccardo Martufi (Saperi&Co).

    The ‘Hygroscopic Dynamism’ project is part of the master’s thesis work in the Master of Science in Product Design (Sapienza University of Rome) by the student Elisa Nicolia and entitled ‘Responsive Hygromorph Skin for the Built Environment’ (supervisor: Prof. Sabrina Lucibello; co-supervisor: PhD Rotondi Carmen).

    For the ‘Evolving Echinoids’ project, the research team comprised Carmen Rotondi and Eugenia Maria Canepone (Department of Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome). The project was for the ‘Echinodesign’ exhibition developed by the Hybrid Design Lab research laboratory at Città della Scienza (Naples).

    The ‘Bioprinting for end-of-life augmentation’ project is part of the thesis work for the PhD in Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture (Product Design curriculum) of Rotondi Carmen (tutor: Prof. Sabrina Lucibello, co-tutor: Stefano Marzano – Philips Design). The experiments were carried out at the Saperi&Co center and in collaboration with the ‘Bioprinting&Biofabrication’ Group of the ‘E. Piaggio’ centre of the University of Pisa.

    For the ‘Continuity’ project, the research team is made up of Sabrina Lucibello, Carmen Rotondi, Camilla Gironi, Paride Duello, Diana Ciufo (Department of Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome), Michela Toussan (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome), Teresa Rinaldi (Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Sapienza University of Rome), Luciano Fattore and Riccardo Martufi (Saperi&Co), in collaboration with Maria Diana Contemporary Jewels.

  14. 14.

    Biomaterials in the form of pastes often require the action of cross-linking agents during the printing process, which solidify the material layer by layer and make the constructs mechanically more resistant and less subject to deformation or loss of shape.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Planning, Design, Technology of Architecture (PDTA)_Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Sabrina Lucibello & Carmen Rotondi

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Correspondence to Sabrina Lucibello .

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  1. Department of Design, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

    Amilton José Vieira Arruda

  2. Department of Industrial Design (DDI), Graduate Program of Architecture, Urbanism, Landscaping (PPGAUP), Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

    Felipe Luis Palombini

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Lucibello, S., Rotondi, C. (2024). Bio-digital ‘Material Systems’: New Hybrid Ways for Material-Driven Design Innovation. In: Arruda, A.J.V., Palombini, F.L. (eds) Biomimetics, Biodesign and Bionics. Environmental Footprints and Eco-design of Products and Processes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51311-4_3

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