A research project that raised Bombyx mori silkworms on flat 3D-printed pedestals, translated their spinning behavior into a custom Houdini geometry node, and applied the resulting pattern to various consumer products as a proof of concept for computational biomimicry in product design.
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Challenge
(01)
Replicating Organic Stochasticity
Nature produces patterns with a kind of organic randomness that digital tools struggle to convincingly replicate, so the question was whether a living organism's behavior could be observed closely enough to be encoded into a procedural algorithm that generates the same visual and structural qualities on any surface.
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Solution
(02)
From Observation to Algorithm
By documenting how silkworms spin flat, non-woven tapestries when denied vertical anchor points, I built a Houdini node chain which consisted of scattering points, connecting them by proximity, resampling, fusing, smoothing, and polywiring. This system reproduces the layering, randomized paths, and boundary constraints of real silk and maps onto any 3D form.
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Conclusion
(03)
Validation and Application
Comparison against the physical silk sheets confirmed the simulation's fidelity, and applying the node network to both a Noguchi lamp shade and a t-shirt pattern demonstrated that the algorithm adapts to arbitrary geometry across product categories, establishing both a design tool and a replicable studio curriculum that pairs ethnographic observation with computational modeling.
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Presentation
(04)
Sharing the Research
This work was published and presented at the 27th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education at the University of Malta in September 2025, where it won Best Student Paper. I presented the full project to an audience of design educators and practitioners, covering the silkworm observation, the Houdini node development, and the applied renderings, and argued that natural agents and computational tools can both serve as design collaborators.
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