vascularization

about this contribution

A recent paradigm shift in materials science and engineering has taken place. The conventional emphasis on strength, durability, and stability generates objects that are difficult to recycle and therefore directly linked to the current ecological crisis. Consequently, researchers in design, engineering, and architecture are now turning their attention to the evolutionary, self-healing, multifunctional, and active capacities of materials that behave just like living organisms. However, in living organisms, these mechanisms are often guided and orchestrated by dendritic or vascular typologies, which support metabolic functions, based on fluid circulation, and the optimization of interactions with the environment.

The resulting project stems from a collaboration between designers, biologists, and surgical researchers aimed at understanding the functioning of vascular structures in organs, and to find new techniques for manufacturing dendritic structures. In the medical field, this research focuses on extracellular matrices (ECMs), the architecture of our organs in which cells can operate. The efficient manufacture of these ECMs is a key challenge for surgical research as a means of mitigating the lack of organ donations.

Inspired by fulgurites, vitreous material formed by lightning striking sand or sediment, we have succeeded in using electrons to tunnel through materials at the micrometric scale. To accomplish this, we required an electron accelerator, which we were able to use at the École Polytechnique in Palaiseau on several occasions. The principle is simple: a block of PMMA (transparent, commonly known as plexiglass) or PLA (bioplastic, green-yellow in color) material to a beam of electrons that are captured in its structure, then given an exit path by a shock from a nail connected to the terrestrial network. Instantaneously, all the electrons are released, forming vascular networks whose pathways are optimized by the process itself. This project, both an investigation into material expression and the development of potential applications, challenges the role of the designer as a mediator between knowledge, technologies, and the discourses of disciplines traditionally considered incommensurable.

Learn more about this project here