Most products are designed for humans. Electronic devices, houses, furniture, cars and fashion are all designed to make our lives easier or more interesting, but they usually don’t take other species into account. There are some exceptions, though. For example, products made with mycelium benefit the planet as a whole and not just the people who use the products. And gardens, which used to be designed only for humans to enjoy, are increasingly taking pollinators into account as well. Designing for the planet rather than just for humans requires a bit of a different way of thinking, and often taps into the latest science as well.
In 2020, artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg was commissioned by the Eden Project to design something for their gardens. The Eden Project educates people about plants and nature through their biospheres and outdoor areas. To fit in with the theme, Ginsberg worked on making a garden for pollinators, using an algorithm that designs custom pollinator gardens for different locations. The garden design tool can show what the garden would look like to humans and to pollinators, like bees, which see colours in a completely different way.
Museum focuses on design beyond humans
A large version of one of these pollinator views is now shown at the Design Museum in London, as part of their new exhibit “More Than Human”, which opens today. Ginsberg also made the algorithm available for others to use, and children of a school local to the museum used this to design their own pollinator garden which can be visited at St Mary Abbots Gardens in Kensington, London.
Ginsberg was one of four Future Observatory fellows. This is the Design Museum’s research program that focuses on transition to a more sustainable world. Other Future Observatory fellows that created new work for the “More Than Human” exhibit are Paulo Tavares, Feifei Zhou and César Rodríguez-Garavito.
Besides newly commissioned work, the exhibit also includes older projects that fit the theme of designing for nature and the planet. One of my personal favourite things at the exhibit is a series of framed pages from a proposal for a “dolphin embassy”. In 1974, architects designed an underwater research station where people would be able to communicate with dolphins. It was never built, because understanding dolphin language was never a research priority, but the whole project just feels very 1970s in its inspiration and enthusiasm.
Design for and by other species
More recent design projects seem to have much more practical applications, especially the ones that the “More Than Human” exhibit groups under the theme “Making with the world”. For example, biodesign lab Faber Futures designed a jacket made with silk that was dyed by bacteria. The soil bacteria Streptomyces coelicolor secrete colors that create patterns on the fabric, so they’re essentially co-creating with humans.
Also on display is a table and stool created by Bento Architecture, and made out of mycelium. This material is a fungus root structure that can be grown into all kinds of custom shapes and has a lot of potential as low-carbon building material. There have been many designs made with mycelium over the past few years and I’ve written previously about the way that artists and designers are essentially experimenting with the way that the material can be used while researchers are studying it at a more molecular and fundamental level.
The “More Than Human” exhibit is at the Design Museum in London until October 5th, 2025. It’s the kind of exhibit that makes you realise that humans are just another animal in the ecosystem. Often, these sorts of exhibits that merge science and art are in science-centric museums or educational institutions. It’s good to see this topic get attention at the Design Museum, where it might find a new audience inspired to think about the planet in the context of design.