Biodesign Challenge
Biodesign Challenge（BDC）生物設計挑戰賽
If you have ever looked at a mushroom, a textile or a tide pool and thought what else could this be, this is your room. Curiosity is the only prerequisite.
Where biotechnology meets design: students learn to look closely at living systems, imagine what they could become, and build proposals that are rigorous, beautiful and responsible. The road from a first material experiment to a team presenting at the Biodesign Challenge Summit in New York.
Biodesign Challenge (BDC) is an international education program and competition that brings students together with scientists, artists and designers to envision future applications of biotechnology. High school and college classrooms register with the program, work with its mentor network over an academic term, and send a team to present at the annual BDC Summit at Parsons School of Design and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The program is run by Biodesign Challenge Inc., a non-profit.
CompetiLab's biodesign program teaches the way of working that this field demands. It sits between the laboratory and the studio: students learn enough biology to be honest about what is possible, enough design method to make ideas tangible, and enough critical thinking to ask whether an idea should exist at all. Material kits, documentation templates and critique formats are prepared in advance, so a team can be growing its first sample in week one. The output is a research-driven design proposal, documented in images, objects and words, of the kind BDC teams present.
- Students drawn to art, architecture, fashion, product or interaction design who want their work to be grounded in science.
- Students in biology or environmental science who want to work on open-ended, creative problems.
- Mixed teams where the most interesting ideas come from the gap between disciplines. No drawing or lab experience needed.
- 01Observe living systems and materials closely, and document them with care.
- 02Investigate the science behind a biological phenomenon well enough to design with it honestly.
- 03Use speculative and critical design to imagine futures, and to question them.
- 04Grow, cast or assemble a biomaterial prototype and learn from its failures.
- 05Think through sustainability, ethics and ecology as design constraints rather than afterthoughts.
- 06Tell the story of a proposal visually, verbally and in writing, to the standard of a Summit presentation.
Looking
- Observation and documentation
- Biological forms and textures
- Ecological systems
Understanding
- Biotechnology for designers
- Biomaterials: mycelium, bacterial cellulose, algae, bioplastics
- Research-driven design
Imagining
- Design thinking
- Speculative design and future environments
- Ethical innovation
Making
- Prototype development
- Material experiments and iteration
- Studio safety and biosafety basics
Telling
- Visual storytelling
- Exhibition and presentation
- Writing a design proposal
The design process
Look until you see
Spend time with a living system, a material or a place. Draw it, photograph it, measure it, and record what surprises you.
Learn the science
Read the research, talk to scientists, and understand the mechanism well enough to know what is and is not possible.
Propose a future
Use speculative design to ask what this could become, for whom, and at what cost. Sketch many ideas before choosing one.
Make it tangible
Grow a material, build a model, stage an experience. Iterate, and document every attempt including the ones that fail.
Tell the story
Design the presentation, exhibition or film that lets an audience understand the proposal and argue with it.
Mentors from design, biology and the arts work with student teams in a studio format: critiques, material workshops and research check-ins. Material experiments use safe, non-pathogenic organisms and follow basic biosafety practice, with kits and protocols prepared so that the first growth starts immediately.
Participation in the official Biodesign Challenge runs through registered classrooms and institutions. We prepare students and teams, help a school understand what registering involves, and support the team through to its Summit presentation.
Grown acoustics
Mycelium composite panels for noisy classrooms, with measured absorption and a plan for end of life.
Textiles that remember water
Bacterial cellulose garments designed around the humidity of a subtropical city.
Ritual and repair
A speculative service in which living materials are maintained by a community rather than replaced.
Coastal futures
A design proposal for an intertidal structure that supports both people and non-human life.
01
A thousand moulds before one
Generative design to explore the forms a mycelium panel could take, then grow the three that make sense.
02
A diary the camera keeps
Daily photographs of a growing sample, and a vision model that tracks coverage, colour and contamination over time.
03
A seawall that knows the tide
Open climate and tide datasets feeding a model of where a living intertidal structure would survive.
04
Fabric from the weather
A city's humidity records as the design brief for a bacterial cellulose garment.
05
A future, drafted and argued with
Use a language model to draft the speculative scenario, then interview real people and let their objections rewrite it.
Duration, format, fees and application dates are confirmed during the inquiry conversation.
Who can take part in the official Biodesign Challenge?
Both high school and college classrooms. Schools register with Biodesign Challenge Inc., each classroom pays a registration fee, and each classroom sends one team to present at the Summit. Our journal guide summarizes the requirements; biodesignchallenge.org has the current version.
Do I need to be good at drawing or biology?
Neither is required. Teams work best when skills are mixed. What matters is curiosity and the patience to make things that do not work the first time.
What materials do students work with?
Safe, widely used biomaterials such as mycelium composites, bacterial cellulose, algae-based bioplastics and natural dyes, following basic biosafety practice. No pathogenic organisms are used.
What do students end up with?
A documented design proposal: research, process, prototypes and a presentation. It is a portfolio piece in its own right, and the natural starting point for a Biodesign Challenge entry.
Begin with a question.
Tell us what a student cannot stop thinking about. We will suggest where it could go.