In this video Hamilton Smith, part of the team that develop the first synthetic cell, talk with Noy Bassik about building machines in the scale of a cell. Two basic ideas are discuss in this conversation, the first one coming from Smith is to build living machines through the alteration of a already existing organism. This mean build a purpose-full device out of the essential biological parts, DNA. In the other side is the vision of Bassik that pursuit the develop of machines that interact with the chemical world of biology. What he's doing is engineer devices that can be controlled by chemical reactions fulfill a purpose. The purpose of this machines is now in the level of mechanical effects but -as they discuss- is projected to be a lot more than that, a complete factory that can sense and react producing and delivering substances needed by the organism.
Now in the eye of a Designer this may look really far away from our expertise area but there is some hints that can give us a second look. First the formal level, the technique worked by
Bassik is inspire in Origami and from this ancient art the idea of build volume out of a flat surface is drawn to research with the out coming of relevant insights to control materials through shape. This imply that formal thinking is needed in the conception of this new kind of machines and designer at above all formal thinkers. Another component of the thinking process of Design can take us into a deeper level, this is the behavioral awareness. Is well know that in Design practice the biggest tool is Observation, observation of people and their conducts, of systems and their components and relations between them, of causes and effects, actually of whatever is involved in the studied situation. This tool in combination with the problem solving thinking of engineers brings about comprehensive solutions that almost in every field of the building-things human endeavor has drive innovation. With the develop of techniques that enables to build thing in the micro scale we are entering in a new stage of technology and the products of this new phase will progressively increase in complexity, when this start to happen it will be necessary the knowledge and the thinking on how the outcome of the process of this machines will affect the whole system, in simpler words, how the behavior of this devices will cause effects on the other component of the system, as the non-micro scale devices affect us and the environment today.
Some of this worries have already take in hands of designers as in Nanotopia or in Victimless leather presented mainly as Art projects but in the way that this technologies star to permeate more deeply our cultures and our daily life the need for a technical and reflective presence of design will be more critical. So, maybe it's time to aim for the future and involve Design in the next technological revolution, design at micro scale.
