2020/2021 Inquiry Passion Project: Biodegradable Fashion Line

https://neri.media.mit.edu/projects.html

What, in general, am I passionate about?

- Exploring art through a science standpoint, or the obverse… How do we use art to
explore science, perhaps even manipulate it?

This is where “Two Degrees, A Husband, and a Silk Suit” (this name is a reference to
Fleabag,​ the greatest TV series on planet Earth) comes into play.
Now, you might be wondering, what even is ​Two Degrees, A Husband, and a Silk Suit​?
Simply put, it is a fashion line (still in the blueprinting stages) of clothing made solely
from biodegradable, organic compounds ranging from silkworm webs to enzymatic,
globular proteins to crystalized glucose and fructose to E. Coli and cyanobacteria. How
can we unearth the wonders of the natural world that have for so long remained
untouched or deemed futile and repurpose them to create art, construct monumental
architectural structures, or, in my case, design sustainable fashion?

Who and what are my inspiration?

Neri Oxman of MIT’s Mediated Matter group… (​amp​)
I first came across her work when I was sent her Ted Talk. This is the transcript:

Two twin domes, two radically opposed design cultures. One is made of thousands of steel parts, the other
of a single silk thread. One is synthetic, the other organic. One is imposed on the environment, the other
creates it. One is designed for nature, the other is designed by her.

Michelangelo said that when he looked at raw marble, he saw a figure struggling to be free. The chisel was
Michelangelo's only tool. But living things are not chiseled. They grow. And in our smallest units of life,
our cells, we carry all the information that's required for every other cell to function and to replicate.

Tools also have consequences. At least since the Industrial Revolution, the world of design has been
dominated by the rigors of manufacturing and mass production. ​Assembly lines have dictated a world
made of parts, framing the imagination of designers and architects who have been trained to think about
their objects as assemblies of discrete parts with distinct functions.

But you don't find homogenous material assemblies in nature. Take human skin, for example. Our facial
skins are thin with large pores. Our back skins are thicker, with small pores. One acts mainly as filter, the
other mainly as barrier, and yet it's the same skin: no parts, no assemblies. It's a system that gradually
varies its functionality by varying elasticity. So here this is a split screen to represent my split world view,
the split personality of every designer and architect operating today between the chisel and the gene,
between machine and organism, between assembly and growth, between Henry Ford and Charles Darwin.
These two worldviews, my left brain and right brain, analysis and synthesis, will play out on the two
screens behind me. My work, at its simplest level, is about uniting these two worldviews, moving away
from assembly and closer into growth.

You're probably asking yourselves: Why now? Why was this not possible 10 or even five years ago? We live
in a very special time in history, a rare time, a time when the confluence of four fields is giving designers
access to tools we've never had access to before. These fields are computational design, allowing us to
design complex forms with simple code; additive manufacturing, letting us produce parts by adding
material rather than carving it out; materials engineering, which lets us design the behavior of materials
in high resolution; and synthetic biology, enabling us to design new biological functionality by editing
DNA. And at the intersection of these four fields, my team and I create. Please meet the minds and hands
of my students.

We design objects and products and structures and tools across scales, from the large-scale, like this
robotic arm with an 80-foot diameter reach with a vehicular base that will one day soon print entire
buildings, to nanoscale graphics made entirely of genetically engineered microorganisms that glow in the
dark. Here we've reimagined the mashrabiya, an archetype of ancient Arabic architecture, and created a
screen where every aperture is uniquely sized to shape the form of light and heat moving through it.

In our next project, we explore the possibility of creating a cape and skirt -- this was for a Paris fashion
show with Iris van Herpen -- like a second skin that are made of a single part, stiff at the contours, flexible
around the waist. Together with my long-term 3D printing collaborator Stratasys, we 3D-printed this cape
and skirt with no seams between the cells, and I'll show more objects like it. This helmet combines stiff
and soft materials in 20-micron resolution. This is the resolution of a human hair. It's also the resolution
of a CT scanner. That designers have access to such high-resolution analytic and synthetic tools, enables
to design products that fit not only the shape of our bodies, but also the physiological makeup of our
tissues. Next, we designed an acoustic chair, a chair that would be at once structural, comfortable and
would also absorb sound. Professor Carter, my collaborator, and I turned to nature for inspiration, and by
designing this irregular surface pattern, it becomes sound-absorbent. We printed its surface out of 44
different properties, varying in rigidity, opacity and color, corresponding to pressure points on the human
body. Its surface, as in nature, varies its functionality not by adding another material or another assembly,
but by continuously and delicately varying material property.

But is nature ideal? Are there no parts in nature? I wasn't raised in a religious Jewish home, but when I
was young, my grandmother used to tell me stories from the Hebrew Bible, and one of them stuck with me
and came to define much of what I care about. As she recounts: "On the third day of Creation, God
commands the Earth to grow a fruit-bearing fruit tree." For this first fruit tree, there was to be no
differentiation between trunk, branches, leaves and fruit. The whole tree was a fruit. Instead, the land
grew trees that have bark and stems and flowers. The land created a world made of parts. I often ask
myself, "What would design be like if objects were made of a single part? Would we return to a better state
of creation?"
So we looked for that biblical material, that fruit-bearing fruit tree kind of material, and we found it. The
second-most abundant biopolymer on the planet is called chitin, and some 100 million tons of it are
produced every year by organisms such as shrimps, crabs, scorpions and butterflies. We thought if we
could tune its properties, we could generate structures that are multifunctional out of a single part. So
that's what we did. We called Legal Seafood, we ordered a bunch of shrimp shells, we grinded them and
we produced chitosan paste. By varying chemical concentrations, we were able to achieve a wide array of
properties -- from dark, stiff and opaque, to light, soft and transparent. In order to print the structures in
large scale, we built a robotically controlled extrusion system with multiple nozzles. The robot would vary
material properties on the fly and create these 12-foot-long structures made of a single material, 100
percent recyclable. When the parts are ready, they're left to dry and find a form naturally upon contact
with air. So why are we still designing with plastics? The air bubbles that were a byproduct of the printing
process were used to contain photosynthetic microorganisms that first appeared on our planet 3.5 billion
year ago, as we learned yesterday. Together with our collaborators at Harvard and MIT, we embedded
bacteria that were genetically engineered to rapidly capture carbon from the atmosphere and convert it
into sugar. For the first time, we were able to generate structures that would seamlessly transition from
beam to mesh, and if scaled even larger, to windows. A fruit-bearing fruit tree. Working with an ancient
material, one of the first lifeforms on the planet, plenty of water and a little bit of synthetic biology, we
were able to transform a structure made of shrimp shells into an architecture that behaves like a tree. And
here's the best part: for objects designed to biodegrade, put them in the sea, and they will nourish marine
life; place them in soil, and they will help grow a tree.

The setting for our next exploration using the same design principles was the solar system. We looked for
the possibility of creating life-sustaining clothing for interplanetary voyages. To do that, we needed to
contain bacteria and be able to control their flow. So like the periodic table, we came up with our own
table of the elements: new lifeforms that were computationally grown, additively manufactured and
biologically augmented. I like to think of synthetic biology as liquid alchemy, only instead of transmuting
precious metals, you're synthesizing new biological functionality inside very small channels. It's called
microfluidics. We 3D-printed our own channels in order to control the flow of these liquid bacterial
cultures. In our first piece of clothing, we combined two microorganisms. The first is cyanobacteria. It
lives in our oceans and in freshwater ponds. And the second, E. coli, the bacterium that inhabits the
human gut. One converts light into sugar, the other consumes that sugar and produces biofuels useful for
the built environment. Now, these two microorganisms never interact in nature. In fact, they never met
each other. They've been here, engineered for the first time, to have a relationship inside a piece of
clothing.​ Think of it as evolution not by natural selection, but evolution by design.
In order to contain these relationships, we've created a single channel that resembles the digestive tract,
that will help flow these bacteria and alter their function along the way. We then started growing these
channels on the human body, varying material properties according to the desired functionality. Where
we wanted more photosynthesis, we would design more transparent channels. This wearable digestive
system, when it's stretched end to end, spans 60 meters. This is half the length of a football field, and 10
times as long as our small intestines. And here it is for the first time unveiled at TED -- our first
photosynthetic wearable, liquid channels glowing with life inside a wearable clothing.

Mary Shelley said, "We are unfashioned creatures, but only half made up." What if design could provide
that other half? What if we could create structures that would augment living matter? What if we could
create personal microbiomes that would scan our skins, repair damaged tissue and sustain our bodies?
Think of this as a form of edited biology. This entire collection, Wanderers, that was named after planets,
was not to me really about fashion per se, but it provided an opportunity to speculate about the future of
our race on our planet and beyond, to combine scientific insight with lots of mystery and to move away
from the age of the machine to a new age of symbiosis between our bodies, the microorganisms that we
inhabit, our products and even our buildings. I call this material ecology.

To do this, we always need to return back to nature. By now, you know that a 3D printer prints material in
layers. You also know that nature doesn't. It grows. It adds with sophistication. This silkworm cocoon, for
example, creates a highly sophisticated architecture, a home inside which to metamorphisize. No additive
manufacturing today gets even close to this level of sophistication. It does so by combining not two
materials, but two proteins in different concentrations. One acts as the structure, the other is the glue, or
the matrix, holding those fibers together. And this happens across scales. The silkworm first attaches itself
to the environment -- it creates a tensile structure -- and it then starts spinning a compressive cocoon.
Tension and compression, the two forces of life, manifested in a single material.

In order to better understand how this complex process works, we glued a tiny earth magnet to the head
of a silkworm, to the spinneret. We placed it inside a box with magnetic sensors, and that allowed us to
create this 3-dimensional point cloud and visualize the complex architecture of the silkworm cocoon.
However, when we placed the silkworm on a flat patch, not inside a box, we realized it would spin a flat
cocoon and it would still healthily metamorphisize. So we started designing different environments,
different scaffolds, and we discovered that the shape, the composition, the structure of the cocoon, was
directly informed by the environment.

Silkworms are often boiled to death inside their cocoons, their silk unraveled and used in the textile
industry. We realized that designing these templates allowed us to give shape to raw silk without boiling a
single cocoon.

They would healthily metamorphisize, and we would be able to create these things.

So we scaled this process up to architectural scale. We had a robot spin the template out of silk, and we
placed it on our site. We knew silkworms migrated toward darker and colder areas, so we used a sun path
diagram to reveal the distribution of light and heat on our structure. We then created holes, or apertures,
that would lock in the rays of light and heat, distributing those silkworms on the structure.

We were ready to receive the caterpillars. We ordered 6,500 silkworms from an online silk farm. And after
four weeks of feeding, they were ready to spin with us. We placed them carefully at the bottom rim of the
scaffold, and as they spin they pupate, they mate, they lay eggs, and life begins all over again -- just like us
but much, much shorter.

Bucky Fuller said that tension is the great integrity, and he was right. As they spin biological silk over
robotically spun silk, they give this entire pavilion its integrity. And over two to three weeks, 6,500
silkworms spin 6,500 kilometers. In a curious symmetry, this is also the length of the Silk Road. The
moths, after they hatch, produce 1.5 million eggs. This could be used for 250 additional pavilions for the
future.

So here they are, the two worldviews. One spins silk out of a robotic arm, the other fills in the gaps.
If the final frontier of design is to breathe life into the products and the buildings around us, to form a
two-material ecology, then designers must unite these two worldviews. Which brings us back, of course, to
the beginning. Here's to a new age of design, a new age of creation, that takes us from a nature-inspired
design to a design-inspired nature, and that demands of us for the first time that we mother nature.

I mean! It’s incredible, no?

I especially resonated with her mention of our need, as mass producers and consumers,
to always perceive our world in parts. ​Everything is compartmentalized, categorized,
labeled, and divided.​ Why? Why can’t our reality be one whole working together toward
a brighter, more natural tomorrow?
This very much reminded me of a Stanford lecture about behavioral biology taught by
Robert Sapolsky. During the first lecture, he presents a sequence of seemingly
unconnected numbers: 4, 14, 23, 34, …
Let’s see here. Maybe we should do some maths. What’s the difference between each of
them? 10, 9, 11. It’s a sort of bounce back-and-forth mathematical motion. So perhaps
the following one will be 10, and then 12. That way, our number is 44. But perhaps we
should have found the quotient, as opposed to difference, between the numbers. Is there
a pattern there? Maybe it’s 04, 14, --, 34 and the pattern is disrupted every three
numbers by a 3 in the ones place. So it should continue as 44, 53, 64, 74, 83…
Using this approach, we still get 44. Is that a sufficient proof? Is our number 44?

No. 44 is incorrect. What could it possibly be, then?!

We have been conditioned to take on and tackle these kinds of problems in such a way
that we don’t even consider a different brand of possibilities. “Oh, it’s a sequence of
numbers, thus I must now do some critical mathematical thinking to unearth the secret
configuration.”
The correct answer is 42. Why? Because 4, 14, 23, 34, 42 is a consecutive list of New
York subway stops. Now, of course, not everyone is familiar with these in the first place,
but even so, would anything besides basic arithmetic have crossed your mind when your
brain muscles began churning and your ears steaming with frustration?
When we realize just how restrained our thinking can be and learn to step outside of
that regimented mindset, we discover opportunities in the most hidden cracks and
crevices of the natural world, those that we previously supposed negligible. There are so
many doors to be opened and possibilities embraced. Why not embrace them?
Product ideas:

- I was on a moonlit stroll on the beach the other night and realized that whenever
I took a step, the sand beneath me would alight as if pixy dust. I was Tinker Bell,
in the flesh, and being Tinker Bell’s curious self, later researched why that was. I
soon discovered that any time I applied pressure against the sand, all the
bioluminescent, solar-powered plankton that had washed up on the shores of
Cannon Beach would quickly disperse and buzz with light. These plankton are
known as dinoflagellates and on solely the coast of Northern Oregon, they exist in
the trillions. What if, instead of powering our light fixtures with electricity, we did
so with these plankton? We would conserve so much energy, save so many
resources, and most importantly, get some of that intensely sought-after natural
light. This is of course, quite optimistic. The light they produce is very dim and
blue, but fortunately, we have the technology to strengthen and recolor it (this is
still very efficient and environmentally sound). I’m thinking, “DINOLIGHT.”
● Another benefit of using these plankton as a light source is that they
themselves are, as I mentioned, solar-powered and therefore
photosynthesize to create food from carbon dioxide and water, releasing
oxygen as a byproduct. They combat global warming (which has actually
forced many of them to relocate to colder oceanic climates) by removing
CO2 from the atmosphere and additionally provide more than half of the
oxygen you are inhaling at this very moment. Therefore, AC and light in
the same package!
● Now, you may be wondering, if dinoflagellates are so critical to capturing
CO2 and contributing O2, wouldn’t we completely agitate the aquatic food
chain by displacing them from their habitats? So many fish and mammals
rely on plankton as their source of food and energy, and hence if we
ignorantly take that source away, we’re discomposing and unbalancing the
entire world as a whole! SOLUTION: the most wonderful aspect of these
bioluminescent plankton is that they are more multitudinous than any
other species on the planet. It has been estimated that there are octillions
wandering our seas and oceans, drifting from one shore to the next. If we
borrow millions of them at a time, I presume (this is a hypothesis of
 course--it still must be scientifically tested and proven accurate) we could
power hundreds of homes.
● Another pro/con is that the dinoflagellates photosynthesize during the
daytime, and when the sun sets, they begin to bioluminesce. Both
processes cannot be fulfilled simultaneously. This is because of their
Circadian Rhythm, and lucky for us, we can use sunlight as our primary
source of light until the nighttime and then switch over to our plankton
pals. If that’s no good and for some bizarre reason you require artificial
lighting during the daytime, great news! The planktons’ Circadian cycle
can be modified throughout the course of several days by shining light at
night and keeping them in a dark area during the day. Soon, they will
adapt to their new light cycle.
● When we’re discussing bioluminescent plankton, what actually makes
them, well, bioluminescent is the symbiotic bacteria--in which a chemical
reaction between a light-emitting molecule (luciferin) and an enzyme
(luciferase) occurs--that reside within them, as well as other complex
organisms such as fireflies, jellyfish, and mushrooms. So, technically, any
of these organisms we could befriend and form an alliance with. But then
again, as we’ve heretofore articulated, dinoflagellates are the MOST
populous organism on the face of the Earth, at the bottom of the food
chain, and hence ideal for such an innovation.
● The light fixtures will be responsive to the touch of a fingertip and will
then mold and apply pressure to the plankton inside them (they alight only
when there is a physical force being enacted against them--it was once the
ocean waves and will now be our fingers).
 - ModernMeadow is using biology to create leather-like goods without the
use of any animal skin:​ ​http://www.modernmeadow.com/our-technology/

- Using silkworm (or Darwin’s bark spider) webs to build sturdy, imperishable
structures: ​https://images.app.goo.gl/dpxegAX9mCQyxMM59
● Both the silkworm and bark spider produce silk tenfold stronger than
kevlar and even steel
● Typically, 3,000 silkworms die to produce 1 pound of silk. How will I
prevent this? Well, more obviously, I’ll have to feed them and keep them in
comfortable conditions. What will I feed them? Mulberry leaves. Where
will I keep them? I can create an outdoor bubble-esque pavilion in my
backyard where I house them on a suspended wired structure, allowing
them to move freely and do their thang!
● What will I use the silk for? Well, it’s in the title--“Two Degrees, A
Husband, and a ​Silk​ Coat”!

MATERIAL ECOLOGY MOMA LECTURE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUjlAGhukhE&ab_channel=TheMuseumofMode
rnArt
BBC SPEAKERS LECTURE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAA0DfAdiIU&ab_channel=WorldEconomicFor
um

EMAIL TO NERI:
Document

Netflix documentary, “Abstract”:

https://www.netflix.com/browse?jbv=80057883
SMART Goals
Smart, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely

Finished In Progress Start Date

1. Draft of 1. Researching 1. Learn to sew, 9/14/2020

email to materials for program, and 3D
Neri pavilion and print
2. Lectures/int 3D-printing 2. Look into
-erviews arm dilemmas of
2. Reaching out biodegradable
to university clothing (child
researchers endangerment,
and machine
professors washability)
3. Send email
4. Purchase
materials
(silkworms,
mulberries,
wooden
blocks, sturdy
wire, etc.)
5. Start building
pavillion

1. Emailed 1. Pick up 1. Reaching out to 9/21/2020

Charles + mulberry university
arranged trees and researchers and
meeting plant them professors
2. Emailed 2. Purchase 2. Send email to
Gav about silkworms Neri
experimenta 3. 3D-print 3. What’s the most
-tion mannequin​, efficient and
phase/done build sustainable way
some pavilion, or to produce
research buy trellis clothing?
3. Found (also, make 4. Look into
silkworm this decision) dilemmas of
farm and biodegradable
other clothing (child
necessary endangerment,
materials machine
 washability)
5. Update website,
create social
media

1. Discussed 1. Picking up 1. Contact Neri and 9/28/2020

with Charles mulberry other
2. Researched trees researchers +
Digital 2. Purchasing designers
Nature silkworms/ 2. Most efficient
Group Silk chow and sustainable
print 3. 3D-printing way to produce
3. Found mannequin clothing? Do I
mannequin 4. Finding the really want to
3D-printing appropriate “mass produce”
design materials to the clothing or
raise the should it just be
silkworms a sort of art
piece that people
can admire but
not necessarily
wear?
3. Look into
dilemmas of
biodegradable
clothing
4. What do I do
after I have the
silk mannequin?

1. Arranged 1. Buy or 1. Most efficient 10/12/2020

meeting construct and sustainable
with Charles mannequin way to produce
2. Decided on model clothing? Do I
final project 2. Pick up tree really want to
format, 3. Plant tree “mass produce”
(​mannequin​, 4. Buy the clothing or
3D-printing, silkworms should it just be
etc.) 5. Arrange with a sort of art
3. Researched Gav piece that people
different 6. Email can admire but
professors + different not necessarily
researchers professors/ wear?
to email Neri 2. Look into
dilemmas of
 biodegradable
clothing

1. Picked up 1. Design … 10/19/2020

mulberry mannequin
tree model
2. Had 2. Practice
meeting 3D-printing
with Gav prototypes
3. Researched 3. Buy
different silkworms/
professors + research
researchers raising
to email process
4. Email
different
professors
and
researchers

1. Got 1. Continue 1. Contact different 10/26/2020

silkworms/ designing art
mulberry mannequin galleries/curator
tree/incubat model s
or 2. Practice ...
2. Had 2 3D-printing
meetings prototypes
with 3. Raise
Gav/becom silkworms
e data 4. Email
analysis different
3. Begun to professors
design and
Blender researchers
model of 5. Build social
mannequin media

1. Had 3 1. Create 1. Email different 11/09/2020

meetings 3D-printing professors and
with prototypes researchers
Gav/contin 2. Raising 2. Dying methods
ued silkworms (TED bacteria)
research 3. Build social
2. Designed media
 and begun 4. Gav work
to print 5. Research
Blender different
model of methods of
mannequin creating
designs (Neri
catalog)

1. Had many 6. Create 1. Build social 11/23/2020

meetings 3D-printing media/branding
with Gav prototypes 2. Reach out to
and one 7. Raising BCA + different
with Martin silkworms universities +
and Merissa 8. Gav work Natsai Audrey
2. Designed 2 9. Research Chieza
mannequin different
models methods of
3. Printed 1 creating
4. Continued designs (Neri
to raise catalog
silkworms 10. Different
5. Acquired dyeing
silkworm methods:
cocoons Streptomyces
coelicolor

1. Had many 1. Finish raising 1. Build social 12/07/2020

meetings silkworms media/branding
with Gav 2. Research
and one different
with Martin methods of
and Merissa creating
2. Printed 3 designs (Neri
mannequin catalog
models 3. Different
3. Continued dyeing
to raise methods:
silkworms Streptomyces
4. Acquired coelicolor,
silkworm rhodospirillu
cocoons m rubrum
from Dahlia 4. Reach out to
5. Produced a BCA +
handful of different
cocoons universities +
 Natsai
Audrey
Chieza

1. Acquired 1. Different 1. Build social 12/15/2020

more dyeing media/branding
silkworms methods: 2. Different
cocoons Streptomyces projects besides
2. Researched coelicolor, Silk Suit
Streptomyc- rhodospirillu
es coelicolor m rubrum
3. Created 2. Reach out to
Update 2 BCA +
4. Emailed different
Faber universities
Futures 3. Design and
print mesh
model
4. Weave silk
on mesh
model
5. Buy more
silkworms/ch
-ow (phase 2)

1. Began 1. Pick 1. Build social 12/22/2020

planning silkworm media/brand
Exhibition cocoons/clea ing
2. Looked into n in boiling 2. Different
different water projects
natural 2. Buy loom besides Silk
dyeing 3. Spin silk Suit
methods 4. Start dyeing
3. Worked on with red
Blender cabbage,
model onions,
turmeric,
etc.
5. Finish
designing
Blender
model so it’s
ready for
 Phase 2
6. Buy more
silkworms
for Phase 2

1. Made 1. Pick 1. Build social 1/11/2021

slideshow silkworm media/brand
2. Wrote script cocoons/clea ing
3. Recorded n in boiling 2. Different
video water projects
4. Tended to 2. Buy loom besides Silk
moths 3. Spin silk Suit
5. Looked into 4. Start dyeing 3. Plan ​Night
dyeing with red of Inquiry
classes cabbage, 4. Reach out to
6. Worked on onions, more
Blender turmeric, companies
model etc. like Faber
5. Finish Futures
designing 5. Email Neri
Blender 6. Email
model so it’s Thailand
ready for study
Phase 2 coordinator
6. Do more
updates
7. Buy more
silkworms
for Phase 2
Links:
Silkworks - e​ bay
Wire - ​homedepot
Grow Pads - ​trueleafmarket
Mulberry tree seeds - ​greenseed garden
Hook - ​myknobs
Wooden trellis (in replacement of wire structure?) - ​lowes,​ ​wayfair,​ ​wayfair,​ ,
homedepot,​ w ​ ayfair
Insulators -
1. .dhgate​: $645
2. Wayfair:​ $49 (no air inlet or outlet units)
3. Alvantor:​ $460

| ​http://www.mulberryfarms.com/silkworm​ |
https://mediatedmattergroup.com/silk-pavilion

As the silkworm eggs are developing and eventually hatching, they need to be housed in
an incubator and fed silkworm chow (​youtube​ or ​youtube​: how to raise silkworms).
The process will be entirely non-violent and cruelty-free (ahimsa silk), as I will not boil
the silkworms during the cocooning stage but rather allow them to live out their 6 to
8-week life cycle.

How will the pavilion be set up?

I will hammer a sturdy hook into the tree in my backyard, and from that hook I will
suspend my wired pavilion (which must be strong enough to support 1.433 lbs of
silkworms. For the pavilion itself, I will use malleable wire to construct a 3D
hexagon-like structure. So the silkworms (130) on the pavilion are in contact with
enough light, I will prop up a mirror adjacent to the pavilion. There is also the concern
of drastic temperature and climate changes, seeing as the worms must be in 78 to 88
degree weather in order to grow and weave at the quickest rate possible. According to
the ​silkwormshop.com​, “​Silkworms can go from egg to 1 inch in length in about 12 days,
and 3 inches in under 30 days. The worms will begin to spin cocoons at about 28 - 30
days old or when they are between 2 1/2 and 3 inches long.”​ In order to keep the worms
in such conditions, I will create a poncho for the pavilion and install a makeshift heater
within it. I will have the silkworms weave until the silk is approximately 1.75 mm and
ready to be spliced and fed into the 3D-printer.
Or, instead of using a suspended wire structure (which has a considerable likelihood of
collapsing, caving inward, being too spacious, etc.), I could suspend a garden trellis like
this ​lowes.​

After the silk cocoons are produced, I will have to experiment to figure out what kind of
compound or solution can disintegrate the cocoon into a thick liquid. This liquid I will
then freeze and divide into fine strips which the 3D-printer will not burn or melt.

{ It takes about 2,500 silkworms to make 1 lb of silk.

That’s 38 groupings for a total of $760… }

https://www.madamearchitect.org/interviews/2020/8/31/neri-oxman

Experimenting Phase

What are the chemical and molecular properties of silk?

What if, instead of acquiring the silk cocoons and only then using them to fashion
clothing, I was to directly create the clothing by placing the silkworms on a sort of wire
mannequin and having them weave away? This way, I wouldn’t have to spin the cocoon
or somehow solidify it--I could just 3D print a mesh mannequin and have that be the
foundation of the silk.

(* ​https://app.luminpdf.com/viewer/5f6b5033781ade0012547791
* ​https://digitalnature.slis.tsukuba.ac.jp/?p=3752​)

Wire mannequin:
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/wire-mannequin-3d-model-1423049

3D design website:
https://www.tinkercad.com/dashboard

Ok, it’s Saturday, October 24. I have two mulberry trees and 200 silkworm eggs!
Whoopee! I’ve bought an incubator, and so hopefully within the next week or two, they’ll
hatch.
As for 3D-printing, I’ve made the decision to design a mannequin in Blender and then
import my model into Cura and create a few small-scale prototypes.

Mannequin:
$50 Blender model w/ a lot of space for cocooning | ​turbosquid
$0 Low Poly Woman rendition | ​cults3d
- Each body part (breasts, hips, waist, shoulders) comes in a different STL file
- Need to assemble with Blender
$5 red mannequin | ​cgtrader

How I’m going to dye the silk:

https://www.ted.com/talks/natsai_audrey_chieza_fashion_has_a_pollution_problem
_can_biology_fix_it#t-775097

https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_lee_grow_your_own_clothes#t-220033

My measurements—
● 31 inches
● 19-20 inches

● 787.4 mm (with head)

● 508 mm

Start a kickstarter and fundraise for a 3D-printer:

600*600*1000 mm (2,080) - ​alibaba

3D-printer recommended in catalog - s​ tratasys
Lotus silk?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9F-u4T7leQ&feature=youtu.be

12/10
Over the course of the past week, as the silkworms have begun to spit silk, I have
realized that I messed up the design of the MM. The silkworms need a more mesh,
trellis-like model to climb on so 1. They don’t immediately slip off and 2. So they have
somewhere to weave. While my first prototype is rigged, it still isn’t the mesh, gridded
material I need it to be. Let’s add a curve modifier to our Blend file and see what
happens.
 - Need new mesh mannequin model
- Need more info on dying methods
- Need to contact Rutgers or BCA lab
- Need to put together Exhibition presentation
- Need to tend to silkworms (clean up containers, feed, etc.)

Streptomyces coelicolor, Natsai Audrey Chieza:

https://www.ted.com/talks/natsai_audrey_chieza_fashion_has_a_pollution_problem
_can_biology_fix_it/transcript#t-51305

Look into ​mordants​ (dye fixatives).

Onion skin dye, avocado skin dye, red cabbage, turmeric, paprika, cochineal, miscanthus
tinctorius, ​safflower petals (carthamus tinctorius), purple gromwell (Lithospermum
erythrorhizon), mixed spice, blueberries, beetroot, coffee, tea, coriander, spinach,
logwood, basil wood
Alkali extracted from straw-ash to release red color from safflower (multiple times)
With, safflower, you must first dry the pedals and then remove the yellow coloring
before them
Add vinegar, then soak linen
Extract from dried plum causes colorant to be absorbed by silk
Soy milk = mordant
Red cabbage = substantive dye, contains water soluble pigment called anthocyanin
(develop color on its own)
Cochineal = adjective dye, anthraquinone, require something to stop the dye from
fading/falling out of the fabric (morant = metal salt solution e.g. iron, aluminum, tin
salt, chromium, copper)
Natural mordant = alum, used for pickling
Tannin = oak gall
Emulsifier = guar gum
Anthocyanin = pH affects the range of its color, introducing acid = red, base =
blue/green
Acid = lemon juice
Base = baking powder
Wash with pH neutral soap (important)
Tutorials:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU43Ja7gKvw&ab_channel=ecofriend.lia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8z6TJQhFfM&ab_channel=RosmerySolorzano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwk1B66dvAM&ab_channel=BytesizeScience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OiG-WjbCQA&ab_channel=VictoriaandAlbertMu
seum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTEku6Ze7qM&ab_channel=TextilesTutorials
Creative bug documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFnZ6PACGiI&ab_channel=CreativebugStudios
Kenya Miles
Brooklyn textile immersion class:
https://textileartscenter.com/adult-classes/
Natural dyeing
class—​https://campscui.active.com/orgs/TextileArtsCenter#/selectSessions/2872005/f
ilter/session=49736136
Charkha wheel:
https://woolery.com/charkha-wheel-box.html?gclid=CjwKCAiAz4b_BRBbEiwA5XlVV
m8c5tTemvYY7OZFU_1WC1HWO7B3FrEuoxzsh82IPrVS8a5lhhKgKRoClxwQAvD_Bw
E