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.
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.
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.
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