Falling Walls Falling Walls Science Summit 2023

Breaking the Wall to Decay by Design

Andrea Ling

Art & Science

The nominating institution Ginkgo Bioworks on the breakthrough:

To design a world without waste, Design by Decay designs waste intentionally. It proposes biological decay as a fabrication process, using enzymes and microbes to decompose and compose biological matter at the same time. By mediating decay through species selection, environmental conditions, and nutrient templating, the work rethinks the circular economy and pursues mutability in the physical world, in order to ensure that the mechanisms of constructive renewal are embedded into that world.

Andrea Ling

ETH Zurich

Andrea Ling is an architect, artist, and researcher working at the intersection of design, fabrication and biology. Her work focuses on how the critical application of biological and computational processes can move society away from exploitative systems of production to regenerative ones. She is the 2020 S+T+ARTS prize winner for her work as the 2019 Creative Resident at Ginkgo Bioworks designing the decay of artifacts in order to access material circularity. She graduated from the MIT Media Lab, Mediated Matter group, where she was a research assistant on the Aguahoja project. Andrea is an architect with the Ontario Association of Architects and a founding partner at designGUILD, a Toronto-based art & design collective. She is currently an A&T fellow at the Institute of Technology and Architecture at ETH Zurich.

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