IN THE BUBBLE JOHN THACKARA - witz cultural

196 Chapter 9
Structural self-repair is another area in which we are learning from
nature. An Australian researcher, Robyn Overall, cut into some pea roots
to see what would happen. She used an immune system to investigate the
orientation of microfilaments in the cell membrane in order to find out
about the orientation of cellulose in the cells. Cells in the wounded root
responded to stresses around them, she found. These cells are under a
high internal pressure, anything up to ten atmospheres; when their internal
pressure changes, the cell elongates. This enables the cells to grow into
the wound area and to repair it. 25 Vincent is convinced that damage control
in man-made systems can benefit from this approach: local, isolated
effectors. 26
We tend to think of products as lumps of dead matter: inert, passive,
dumb. But products are becoming lively, active, and intelligent. Objects
that are sensitive to their environment, act with some intelligence, and
talk to each other are changing the basic phenomenology of products—
the way they exist in the world. The result is to undermine long-standing
design principles. ‘‘Form follows function’’ made sense when products
were designed for a specific task—but not when responsive materials that
modify a product’s behavior are available. Another nostrum, ‘‘truth to
materials,’’ was a moral imperative of the modern movement in design; it
made sense when products were made of ‘‘found’’ or natural materials
whose properties were predetermined. But ‘‘truth’’ is less helpful as a design
principle when the performance and behavior of materials can be specified
in advance.
Learning, Not Copying
To what questions will all this stuff be an answer? After 3.8 billion years of
evolution, nature has a pretty good idea of what works, what is appropriate,
and what lasts. ‘‘Nature solves problems; engineers seek answers; what
better marriage could you ask for?’’ asks Vincent. 27 Learning from the principles
of nature can save a lot of time and cost. We can learn about the
ways in which natural systems have achieved minimum-energy solutions,
run on sunlight, use only the energy they need, and so on. We can learn
how natural systems optimize, rather than maximize, their use of materials.
We can learn, like nature, how to create artifacts that sense and respond to
their local situation, recycle everything, and do not foul their nests. But