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BioDesign Studio: Creature Creation Station

Visitors combine tangible bio-element tokens at a curved table to design a hybrid synthetic creature, which then animates in a shared projected ecosystem.

Visitors at the curved Creature Creation table in BioDesign Studio. An adult and several children assemble tangible tokens while a synthetic creature they have designed animates on the projection wall behind them.
Creature Creation Station, BioDesign Studio, The Tech Interactive, San Jose. Image: Local Projects / The Tech Interactive.
Role
Project Director, Concept, Development Lead, Evaluation
Organization
The Tech Interactive (institutional), San Jose
Years
2013–2017
Location
San Jose, CA
Category
Biodesign and synthetic biology
Status
Completed

What it is. A station inside BioDesign Studio at The Tech Interactive, the permanent synthetic-biology exhibition that opened March 18, 2016. At a curved table, visitors combine tangible bio-element tokens to design a hybrid synthetic creature. The creature is then released onto a shared BioPool projection wall, where every visitor’s design moves through the same simulated ecosystem.

The design problem. Genetic design is abstract and usually screen-bound. The station had to make composing an organism physical and legible to a first-time visitor in under a minute, then give the result a social afterlife on a wall the whole room shares.

The studio’s role. Project Director, Concept, Development Lead, and Evaluation on the Tech Interactive side; the interactive build was a partnership with Local Projects. The Creature Creation Station is the piece carried in the IxDA Interaction Awards entry for BioDesign Studio. The studio overall received AAM Silver MUSE, a D&AD Wood Pencil, and a Core77 Runner-Up in 2017; see the BioDesign Studio page for the full record.

Three visitors stand at the curved BioPool projection wall, each holding a snake-arm tangible controller. Glowing synthetic organisms drift across the wide screen in front of them.
BioPool wall, Creature Creation Station. Image: Local Projects / The Tech Interactive.

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Related work

  • 2013–2017

    BioDesign Studio

    A permanent exhibition on synthetic biology at The Tech Interactive. A working biological design lab on the museum floor, with tangible-tabletop microbe simulators, live cell-culture stations, and visitor-runnable design tools.