Includes bibliographical references and index.

The designs of the natural -- The logic of living assembly -- Fabrication in the living -- Conclusion : the craft of living construction.

"Modern bio-technologies give us unprecedented control of the fundamental building blocks of life. For designers, across a range of disciplines, emerging fields such as synthetic biology offer the promise of new sustainable materials and structures which may be grown, are self-assembling, are self-healing and adaptable to change. While there is a thriving speculative discourse on the future of design in the age of biotechnology there are few realised design applications. This book, the first in the Bio Design series, acts as a bridge between design speculation and scientific reality, and between contemporary design thinking, in areas such as architecture, product design and fashion design, and the traditional engineering approaches which currently dominate bio technologies. Filled with real examples, Living Construction reveals how living cells construct and transform materials through methods of fabrication and assembly at multiple scales, and how designers can utilise these processes"-- Provided by publisher.