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Scientists and designers are pairing up to imagine extraordinary things. Veronica Simpson welcomes the bridging of two seemingly disparate worlds

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By Veronica Simpson

On a wet afternoon in January a group of graduates from The Bartlett's Architectural Design course and Creative Textiles MA students from Central Saint Martins are gathered in the Lethaby Gallery at CSM to inspect the poo of fruit flies - or more specifically, specialists' explorations and visual representations of the communications between brain and gut during this fertile insect's short life. They are also looking at the data collected around the behaviour of slime mould (earth-dwelling single cell amoebas that swarm into a larger, mobile entity to enable them to move to more fertile pastures). Other topics include motioncapture technology and what it tells us about the connection between our brains and bodies, DNA extraction, and how the blind nematode worm navigates.

One outcome of the latest Living Factory workshops was under-skin self-monitoring healthcare

This is all part of a two-day science immersion intended to stimulate thinking and collaboration around the topic of Big Data - these diverse data-rich topics are presented as a kind of scientific 'pick 'n' mix' aimed at provoking the participants to innovate at the outer edges of their creative comfort zones. Creative textiles course founder and research leader Carole Collet explains: 'Recently scientists have been able to record all of Shakespeare's sonnets on a single piece of DNA. When living materials become carriers for our data, what systems do we design, what applications and interactions emerge?'

This research question underpins the Living Factory workshop, whose participants are then asked to wrestle with over the course of the following three weeks, working in the same Central St Martins' gallery space, so that onlookers can witness the development process as well as the final exhibition.

It is the fifth in a series of yearly held cross-disciplinary 'science meets design' workshops cooked up by Collet and her ally Brona McVittie at the Medical Research Council's Clinical Sciences Centre, but it's the first one to put the whole development process as well as the finished projects on show, and the first to include participants from The Bartlett's Interactive Lab, RC3. So what were the outcomes? Of the six projects that emerged, one of them looked at the implications of 'bespoke care' - self-monitoring personalised healthcare technology that sits below the skin and gathers data on your body's performance to alert you to areas of concern. Another proposed using intelligence from Imperial College's 'neurotechnology' research (harnessing the biological and mechanical powers of brain learning and machine learning) to create buildings and materials in our physical world that respond intuitively to our needs. The slime moulds research inspired the idea for a soil-based single cell organism that could identify areas of industrial soil contamination through colour signalling. Not bad for three weeks' brainstorming.

Collet says: 'The private view was really amazing. Sometimes people turn up and have a drink. But this time there was just conversation after conversation with scientists and designers. It was extremely rich and wonderful to watch.' Some of the scientists involved want to develop these ideas further back in their own labs - a development which, as Collet says, is 'very exciting'.

This enthusiasm reflects a growing awareness among scientists of the benefits of working with designers, says Collet. 'The planets are becoming aligned because of what's happening in science: when science labs apply to big funds they now have to argue for the potential impact of their work.' This is not just a trend, she says, 'it's a future business. It's a new kind of design role that's translating science into design concepts.' To this end, Collet hopes to set up a lab dedicated to researching the possibilities of designing with living systems. 'My ambition is to have designled science. We find pertinent research questions to give to the scientists; we're closing the loop.'

Science-enriched creativity is clearly a hot topic. In February, Roca London Gallery announced 'an intelligent interactive and thought-provoking' exhibition of objects, videos and photographs inspired by biological systems: Designs by Mother Nature (until 24 May). Simultaneously, The Architecture Foundation launched the first exhibition looking at the extraordinary work of architect and innovator Michael Pawlyn. A pioneer in designs inspired by biological systems - biomimicry for Pawlyn it's not about 'sustainability as damage limitation' but harnessing or copying the behaviour of natural systems to create structures that improve our ecosystem. For example, his Sahara Forest Project copies the ingenious moisture-harvesting shell structure and behaviour of the Namibian beetle to bring greenery and insect life to the Qatari desert.

Pawlyn's method he says, is to 'work with scientists to develop concepts and then find clients to make these concepts a reality'. He has a cohort of brilliant biologists to call on for 'divergent brainstorming sessions', before narrowing ideas down to the best one.

Good things can clearly happen when designers get involved with boffins. Scientists bring extraordinary focus and depth in specific areas, while designers bring lateral thinking, communication skills and marketing nous. For both, there is satisfaction to be gained in translating scientific and creative intelligence into tangibles that solve problems in the real world. As a business model, it's already gaining traction in the USA where, for example, multidisciplinary 'innovation consulting firm' gravitytank has come up with a solution for the risk of infection in high-density commuting situations. A clothing line called Straphanger is ready to roll - given sufficient interest, investment and a willing manufacturer.

The products include a removable, antimicrobial elbow patch which provides a safe place to sneeze; a breathable jacket with a high collar lined with antimicrobial fleece and a pair of antimicrobial 'pole gloves' that slip down over your hands from inside your sleeves so you don't actually have to touch a train's handrails or straps.

The field for these hybrid consultancies is expanding rapidly, according to gravitytank's Amy Seng. She cites American firms such as Design Continuum, Jump Associates, Ideo and Frog Design, as well as European ones - Engine, Live Work, ReD Associates and Claro Partners.

Bring on the brave new world. As for me, I'm off to Manchester to see what innovation consultancy FutureEverything has lined up for its 2014 Festival, called Tools for Unknown Futures. At this rate, we'll be needing something more than a set of spanners.