Beyond Archetype: From Industrial Design to Biodesign in the Age of Artificial and Biological Intelligence

Abstract

Biodesign is often framed as an extension of industrial design through biological materials, processes, or aesthetics. This paper argues instead that biodesign represents a fundamental, epistemic, and civilizational shift, comparable in magnitude to the Industrial Revolution that shaped industrial design and its pedagogy. Drawing on Alexander Manus conception of the designer as a cognitive agent, the paper reframes design as the structuring of meaning and relationships rather than the production of objects. As artificial intelligence and biological intelligence increasingly converge, the designers role shifts from innovator to co-evolver: a mediator of adaptive systems operating across temporal and ecological scales. Situating biodesign within an emerging biotechnical revolution, the paper critiques industrial archetypes in design education and proposes a post-archetypal pedagogical framework grounded in systems thinking, more-than-human ethics, and planetary cognition. Biodesign thus emerges not as a style, but as the design paradigm of a biotechnical age.