CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/17/2013

Bio Design: The Frankenstein Factor

In today's New York Times, Julie Lasky reviews MoMA's new release, Bio Design: Nature + Science + Creativity by William Myers. Featured image, "Fab Tree Hab" by Mitchell Joachim of Terreform ONE, is a project under development, which will graft living trees together to create liveable shelters. According to Lasky, "bio designers must grapple with the Frankenstein factor: a concern that their experiments will unleash some unmanageable new horror." Projects like "Fab Tree Hab," as well as a house made of living tissue (ie, "meat") and a compostable chair made of mushrooms and genetically reinforced cellulose have earned Joachim "regular visits by representatives from Homeland Security and the F.B.I. 'They just come by to see what a healthy, working community-based lab looks like, as opposed to a terrorist cell,' Mr. Joachim said. He believes the fear that researchers will blunder into a ghastly science-fiction situation is overwrought. 'It’s like you’re designing a teapot and you accidentally make a machine gun,' he said. 'It just doesn’t happen.'"