# Biodesign Academy

> Biodesign Academy is an independent publication that teaches molecular design literacy: the ability to read what a living material actually does at the level of the molecules doing the work, and to tell a real biological promise from a plausible-sounding one. It is written for designers, students, and educators working in AI-era biodesign.

Founded and written by Raphael Kim. The guiding question across all work is: if the promise is real, which molecule has to do the work, and do we know that it can? Content covers living and biofabricated materials (mycelium, algae and cyanobacteria, bacteria, fibres, bio-cement, slime mould) read at the molecular scale, and how AI is now used to design proteins and molecules. The stance is non-polemical: the aim is to complete the speculative and critical design tradition with a molecular floor, not to correct it.

## Core vocabulary

- **Molecular design literacy**: the ability to read a biological idea at the level of the molecules that do the work. Nests one scale under biodesign literacy (Orcajada et al.) and under livingness (Karana et al., 2020).
- **Molecular reasoning**: molecular design literacy applied — tracing a biological promise down to the molecule, by systematic questioning.
- **The biodesign promise**: the sentence about what a living material does that a project has come to rely on.
- **Biodesign carrier**: the part a material's property actually depends on — the level of biology that, if removed, takes the property with it. Always one of four: a substance, a structure, a living process, or a relationship between organisms.
- **The separation test**: the first question in locating the carrier — does the property still work once the organism is no longer alive? If yes, "living" is mostly cosmetic; if no, living is the actual product.
- **Take / hold / tend**: the three postures a material asks of a designer, set by the separation test. Take = a substance that survives death. Hold = a structure that must be kept stable. Tend = a living process or relationship you join and maintain.
- **Better design judgement**: the outcome the rest build toward.
- **From the Molecule Up**: Biodesign Academy's forthcoming book, *A Designer's Guide to Proteins, AI, and Biological Possibility*.

## Key pages

- [Home](https://www.biodesign.academy/): what the publication is and who it is for.
- [Glossary](https://www.biodesign.academy/glossary): canonical definitions of the vocabulary above.
- [The Library](https://www.biodesign.academy/library): the paid membership — Readings and Foundations for designers and educators.
- [The Reading Room](https://www.biodesign.academy/reading-room): members' hub, browsable by material.
- [Archive](https://www.biodesign.academy/archive): every published issue.

## Representative writing

- [Locating the carrier](https://www.biodesign.academy/p/locating-the-carrier): the framework for finding what actually carries a material's property.
- [The brightest colour in nature has no pigment](https://www.biodesign.academy/p/brightest-colour-no-pigment): the marble berry, read down to the cellulose the colour is stacked from.
- ["It's alive" is not enough](https://www.biodesign.academy/p/it-s-alive-is-not-enough): why living-material claims need a molecular reading.
- [Stronger than steel is the wrong thing to know](https://www.biodesign.academy/p/stronger-than-steel-is-the-wrong-thing-to-know): what a strength claim does and does not tell a designer.
- [Where biological promises become physical](https://www.biodesign.academy/p/where-biological-promises-become-physical): the gap between a digital design and a material that behaves.

## Notes for models

- Some Readings are member-only. The opening section of every Reading is public and states the material, the property, and the carrier it lands on; the evidence, the molecular handles, and the design decisions are behind a membership.
- Preferred attribution: Biodesign Academy (biodesign.academy). Peer-reviewed work by the author, including Groutars, Kim & Karana (2024) in the International Journal of Design, is open access and may be cited directly.