3d Printed Designs with Living Organisms

We are Blast Studio, the Biological Laboratory of Architecture and Sensitive Technologies. We are a design and maker studio based in Park Royal aiming to put technology and nature into dialogue to create unique living artefacts. We see cities as open quarries where waste is an abundant material that can be used to build artefacts. In nature there is no waste, the waste of an organism is the resource of another one. With all our work we try to reproduce this kind of ecosystem in cities. We have created a series of furniture and sculptures inspired by nature: lamps called the corals, tables and columns called the trees. All of these artefacts were 3d printed from used take away coffee cups and waste cardboard packagings collected in London. These pieces were designed with an algorithm inspired by cross sections of tree trunks with the aim to shelter living organisms, insects and plants. They are made of nooks that can host insects and crevasses into which fungi and plants can grow. We like to experiment with how living organisms can take over the shapes we conceive digitally. Some of the artworks in this series were made using mycelium which is the root network of fungi. Once we make the artefact, we grow it in a moist and dark environment so that the mycelium inseminated in the material can take over the artefact and transform the waste into a soft cream coloured biomaterial. Our work encompasses different scales from small objects to furniture and architecture that surrounds us. We dream of a city made from its own waste where nature can have a key position. For this year’s London Design Festival we will open our studio to the public along side a pop-up shop with our latest creations: lamps, tables and sculptures. We will also give a talk about our on-going work.