Teaching biodesign through algal experimentation: methods for living-system prototyping

Biodesign education increasingly seeks to integrate design practice with the life sciences through interdisciplinary, hands-on approaches. However, few teaching models show how living-material prototyping can be embedded across studio-based design education and biosafety-level laboratory environments. This paper presents Living Pigments, a pedagogical framework developed in the first year of a two-year biodesign master programme. The unit introduces algae-based prototyping through a design-led approach that emphasises experimentation, collaboration, and ethical engagement. Through lectures, laboratory workshops, biofabrication sessions, and studio tutorials, students learn to cultivate and design with pigment-producing algae as active collaborators rather than inert materials. Informed by Ron Wakkary’s concept of designing-with, the framework foregrounds non-human agency, care, maintenance, and uncertainty. Drawing on selected student case studies, the paper demonstrates how algae-based prototyping supports interdisciplinary thinking, technical confidence, and reflective practice, offering a practice-based model that bridges studio and laboratory learning in biodesign education.