Biodesign Here Now - the event for Biodesign, the future of materials, manufacturing, architecture & fashion.
This exhibition series showcases world-class projects to give a first taste of the field of Biodesign - From sustainable pollination to grown fashion to personal medicines; We are showcasing emerging international designers and start-ups with cutting-edge ideas that will shape our futures. Projects that break the boundaries between biology, design, and technology.
The exhibition series is curated by Helene Steiner and organized by Open Cell, the first public research center for consumer-facing biotechnology and biodesigners. The Open Cell campus hosts 70 shipping containers converted into pop-up biotechnology labs and workspaces.
The festival series attracted every year over 2000 visitors and showcased over 55 international and national designers.
Why Biodesign
The cost of reading and writing DNA has fallen 1 million times in just 20 years. Not since the early days of the digital revolution have we seen a technology advance with such velocity. This impact is being felt beyond biotech and medicine, paving the way for products and systems that will affect our everyday life. Biology will be used increasingly as a key component in our everyday products, helping to create products and methods at lower cost that are healthier and more environmentally friendly. Increasingly chemical precursors will be generated using bacterial cells, rather than petrochemicals, leading to a more sustainable future. Highly polluting agricultural processes such as animal rearing can be replaced by lab-grown proteins. Already materials are being developed that mimic natural fibers, alongside methods of colouring them using bacterial derived dyes.