Growing Conditions for Growing: Infrastructures for Designing with Living Organisms in Fabrication Settings

Abstract

Recently, there has been a growing attention in the HCI community on leveraging biological affordances of living organisms to expand interaction possibilities. Current interests range from the development of grown materials for interactive products to the design of bio-digital systems. To facilitate such work, biological practices are no longer only undertaken in professional laboratories, but also increasingly in fabrication settings. In this paper, we aim to provide an understanding of considerations and strategies that could inform future infrastructural designs for working with living organisms. Our insights are drawn from site visits and interviews in Western European locations currently exploring this domain. Building on our findings, we argue that the infrastructural designs of these spaces are not defined by discrete material entities, but instead, point towards conditions which are cultivated differently in each context.