Parsons has cemented its role as a leader in sustainable innovation by serving as the de facto home of the BioDesign Challenge (BDC), an international competition held each June that invites high school and college teams to New York City to tackle sustainability challenges using biotechnology.

Since the competition's launch in 2016, Parsons’ School of Art, Media, and Technology (AMT) has co-hosted and been deeply involved in the week-long event, with faculty developing curricula for it and guiding students competing in the challenge. Finalists from schools around the globe gather to showcase their projects before sustainability practitioners in academia, industry, and art and design, along with an audience of more than 400 attendees. Winning projects have often evolved into successful businesses, further solidifying Parsons' reputation as a hub for biodesign innovation.

The BDC was conceived by Genspace, an independent biology lab in Brooklyn, to inspire alternatives to toxic chemicals and carbon-intensive materials. The competition aims to inspire students to create and critique innovative applications of biotechnology. Alison Irvine, a 2014 graduate of Eugene Lang College with BA degrees in Interdisciplinary Science and Theater, is a key figure behind the challenge. Now the treasurer of the BDC executive board, Irvine shared the concept with her network at Lang and Parsons, including AMT faculty member Jane Pirone, helping to bring the competition into the fold at Parsons.

 

When the day arrived for the Guggenheim’s special event, which the Parsons team dubbed Float, students led adults and children in the creative workshop on the museum’s third floor. Together they sketched, prototyped, and built miniature kites that were later whisked down the rotunda’s spiraling ramp in a joyous performance art–like procession led by students along with Jahn and Kocic.

As the workshop participants made kites, attendees in the lobby interacted with the anthropomorphic sculptures. One pair seemed to be nuzzling each other; another did battle with their beaks. A third group tipped their beaks when museumgoers approached and seemed to kneel reverentially before them. The sculptures called to mind interactions typical of art-world settings, where cozy alliances, competition, and assertions of authority abound.

 

“A lot of successful work comes directly out of the BDC,” Sareen says, pointing to TômTex as a notable example. TômTex is a bio-based fabric developed by MFA Textiles graduate Uyen Tran ’21, who received acclaim for the concept at the 2020 BDC and launched a namesake company the same year, while still in school. Whether competition alumni pursue jobs or develop enterprises focusing on biotechnology, Pirone says, “they have formed professional relationships and a community of practice. And our longtime relationship with the BDC allows us to stay closely connected to this community and engages us in ongoing education and capacity building, so that everybody can continue to thrive.” Professor Katayoun Chamany, a geneticist and cell biologist who leads Eugene Lang College’s Interdisciplinary Science program and works with AMT to support its BDC partnership, has even created curriculum modules that BDC organizers make available to participants.

 

“When you think of the word biodesign, medicine, engineering, and behavioral science may come to mind, but there is no one definition for it,” Sareen says. “We are helping to crystallize its meaning, with an emphasis on design and criticality.”