Autodesk Gallery Powers of Design Exhibit: 10**0 Biome Concept Car

I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.

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Physical prototype of Biome concept car. Image courtesy of Mercedes-Benz.

10⁰ MAGNITUDE
1 m
1 Meter

Biome Concept Car

4 Meters

After the amazing things being done at minute scales, you’d think design at this scale (1 to 100 meters) would be more pedestrian, but there’s nothing conventional about the Biome—a fully imagined concept car unlike anything else.

Inspired by symbiotic relationships in nature, the Biome is made from an ultra-lightweight biological material grown from seeds. Echoing the natural form, protective shell, and structural cavities of an animal skull, it uses bioluminescence for headlights, releases pure oxygen as it operates, and becomes a seamless part of an ecosystem we can only imagine—for now.

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You've heard of a concept car. Well, this is more like a car concept. Imagine it — a car that runs off of sunlight and produces oxygen. A car that is grown from 6 seeds: one per wheel, one for the frame, and another for the shell. Actually, the growing part is less far-fetched than the power source. Think of your femur. No one had to hone it into the shape of a femur. It just knew how to grow itself into that shape. The DNA that Mercedes Benz is patenting, biofibre, has its roots in bone material. The Biome car gives you a sense of where automakers believe manufacturing is headed.

Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.

Previous posts on this topic include:

• 10^-15 Protons and Neutrons
• 10^-14 Atomic Nucleus of a Uranium Atom
• 10^-13 Nada, Zilch, Zero, Zip
• 10^-12 Gamma Rays
• 10^-11 Fluorine Ion
• 10^-10 Wavelength of Hard X-Rays
• 10^-9 Carbon Nanotubes
• 10^-8 Molecular Transport Nano Robot
• 10^-7 HIV Virus
• 10^-6 Red Blood Cells
• 10^-5 Sand
• 10^-4 Microelectromechanical Systems
• 10^-3 Sonata Silicium Watch Components
• 10^-2 Lego
• 10^-1 Prosthetic Fairing

Future blog posts will cover:

• 10¹ Ma'erkang Housing Reconstruction
• 10² Shanghai Tower
• 10³ Bay Bridge
• 10⁴ Masdar City
• 10⁵ Palm Islands
• 10⁶ The Moon
• 10⁷ Earth
• 10⁸ Jupiter
• 10⁹ The Sun
• 10¹⁰ Distance Light Travels in 34 Seconds
• 10¹¹ Distance from Jupiter to the Sun
• 10¹² Distance from Pluto to the Sun
• 10¹³ Voyager 2
• 10¹⁴ The Solar System
• 10¹⁵ Cat's Eye Nebula
• 10¹⁶ Pillars of Creation
• 10¹⁷ Great Orion Nebula
• 10¹⁸ M15 Globular Cluster
• 10¹⁹ Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
• 10²⁰ Triangulum Galaxy
• 10²¹ The Milky Way
• 10²² IC 1101
• 10²³ Local Group of Galaxies
• 10²⁴ The Local Supercluster
• 10²⁵ 3C 273
• 10²⁶ Outer Limit of the Universe

Measurement is alive in the lab.