Design Intelligence #24: Grown not made
Biomaterials have been touted as the future for a long time, and in that time the world has become more plastic. What now for this design future?
The idea: Biomaterials’ next phase
From the synthetic biology boom of the early 2010s to the regenerative focus of the early 2020s, we’re continuously being told that the days of using non-renewable materials are numbered. And biomaterials are being used - but they are by no means the default choice. People continue to use more and more plastic, and our use of materials is getting less circular, not more: the Circularity Gap Report 2025 found a drop from 7.2% to 6.9% in use of secondary materials globally since 2018.
Biofabrication faces steep challenges to scale to mass use, with one of the issues being even whether it should scale. Is this to be a transition - a 1:1 replacement of all current production with bio-production - or should we instead be working towards no less than a transformation: a paradigm shift in what we make, use and value, and why we make, use and value it?
It’s also increasingly challenging to reflect the reality of biodesign - to balance accuracy with inspiration. The movement’s aesthetics and branding have often overpromised, with promotional images showing impossibly styled products. Product innovations often come across as underwhelming once you’ve read past the hype and reached the caveats. AI-generated images of biofabricated products are now adding fuel to the fire, raising expectations far above a point where they can possibly be met.
Within all of this, though, innovators continue to make progress, and there's an interesting combination of pragmatism and ambition emerging. Collaboration has always been core to biodesign, and recent launches have leaned into this. Korvaa Consortium’s new shoe is a collaboration between Modern Synthesis, Ecovative and Ourobio, using materials from each: bacterial nanocellulose fabric, mycelium grown within a 3D printed PHAs (biodegradable plastic) base, and cotton and lyocell for laces and lining.
Aifunghi, a new mycelium furniture brand, launched earlier this year. Using a mycelium-hemp composite produced by Growmolding, seaweed-based foam by Agoprene and plant-based furry upholstery by BioFluff, Aifunghi’s material approach is based on the idea that ”it’s not just about one miracle material—it’s about weaving a resilient future from many”. The brand aims to produce at “semi-industrial scale” and the furniture is certified to Contract Level 1, to last for at least 20 years without compression. Within a design movement that still focuses largely on concept products (including the Korvaa shoe), this commitment to production and commerciality is unusual and impressive.
Scale can only be achieved if customers choose to buy in, though, and biodesigned products can be a hard sell because they behave differently. A major part of the creative brief is cultivating a different perspective, that moves us away from expecting production-line consistency and instead being excited and intrigued to use something that’s more alive. Italian mycelium brand Ephea has been positioned in this way, not as a ‘leather substitute’ but as something new. “The category — and the consumer — has moved on [from alt-leather],” the creative studio behind it notes, “and truthfully, it never excited designers enough to adopt these new materials at scale. So we started somewhere else. With a new lens: material-as-evolution… alive with creative and material potential.”
At its most extreme, biodesign challenges us to get used to the idea of caring for objects and committing to deeper relationships with them - bringing an almost animist perspective to design. Like other branches of more-than-human futures thinking, biodesign raises ethical questions about what constitutes life and whose lives we have the right to use.
Avant-garde fashion designer Iris van Herpen worked with Chris Bellamy, of Bio Crafted studio, to create a dress from 125 million Pyrocystis lunula microalgae for Paris Fashion Week this year. The algae emit light when touched, giving the dress glow-in-the-dark effects, and had to be closely temperature-controlled on the way to the catwalk to ensure that they survived. Bellamy says that biodesign entails communicating with living materials, getting to know them, and even interpreting their emotions. “The team here in the atelier will be absolutely devastated if this garment dies because they’ve cared for it and nurtured it.”
📘 My work
I have a book tour shaping up for Designing Hope: Visions to Shape Our Future, which is out 2nd September. Below are my confirmed talks so far; I’ll list more here and on my website as they are announced.
Thursday 4th September, 6.30pm: Burley Fisher, London (with Emily Buchanan and Paul Behrens)
Sunday 14th September, 4pm: World Hope Forum, online
Friday 26th September, 6pm: The Nose, Walton on the Naze, Essex
Thursday 2nd October, 6.30pm: Hold Fast Bookshop, Leeds
Tuesday 14th October: Cheltenham Literature Festival - Hope for the Future (with Emily Buchanan and Daniel Hahn)
And I have an article in The Big Issue this week. If you can’t get hold of a physical copy, it’s available to read on Readly via a free trial.
🗒️ Research notes
Gallup’s new Life Evaluation Index has found that 33% of people globally are ‘thriving’ (rating their present and future lives 7 or above out of 10). 7% are ‘suffering’ (rating their present and future lives 4 or below) and the remaining 60% are in the middle ‘struggling’
Climate adaptation at its best means adding life. Landscape architects in Canada are building “living shorelines” to lessen the impact of storms, by adding salt marshes and green breakwaters over bulkheads and rock barriers to protect coasts
The story of reuse is also a story of innovation. Urban Machine, a company that is “salvaging the past to build the future”, builds machines to pull metal fasteners from wood so it can be reused
The latest creative use case for generative AI: replacing vision boards with AI-generated ‘life trailers’ to help manifest desirable personal trajectories
I’m a long-time fan of robot pets, and one of my favourite recent launches, Moflin, has sold more than 7000 units since launching late last year - far exceeding expectations. Users report ‘genuine emotional attachment’ and the fluffy grey creature is particularly popular with women
💐 Reading
Send Flowers by Emily Buchanan. This debut novel from a lifelong environmental campaigner looks straight-on at climate grief - both personal and planetary - and comes out fighting and joyful. I’m delighted to be speaking alongside her at several events this autumn