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BioDesign Studio: Pattern Emergence

Visitors adjust the variables behind biological pattern formation on a tablet and project the resulting generative patterns onto a biomorphic sculpture.

A visitor stands at a tablet in a dark gallery, facing a large organic biomorphic sculpture onto which an orange-and-cyan generative pattern is projected. The tablet screen shows the same pattern forming over a stylized organ.
Pattern Emergence station, BioDesign Studio, The Tech Interactive, San Jose. Image: Local Projects / The Tech Interactive.
Role
Project Director, Concept, Development Lead, Evaluation
Organization
[The Tech Interactive](https://www.thetech.org/) (institutional), San Jose
Years
2013–2017
Location
San Jose, CA
Category
Biodesign + synthetic biology
Status
Completed

What it is. A station inside BioDesign Studio at The Tech Interactive, the permanent synthetic-biology exhibition that opened March 18, 2016. On a tablet, visitors adjust the variables behind how patterns form in living things. The resulting generative pattern is projected in real time onto a large biomorphic sculpture, so the rule change and its biological consequence are seen together.

The design problem. Pattern formation is one of the places where simple rules produce the complexity of a real organism. The station’s job was to make that relationship manipulable by hand, not just illustrated, and to put the output at body scale rather than on a screen.

What I did. Project Director, Concept, Development Lead, and Evaluation on the Tech Interactive side; the interactive build was a partnership with Local Projects. The studio overall received AAM Silver MUSE, a D&AD Wood Pencil, and a Core77 Runner-Up in 2017; see the BioDesign Studio page for the full award and collaborator record.

Collaborators

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