BIOCAFE
2018
Future food is a hot topic of speculation design. I aim to rebuild the relationship between food and human, also motivate individuals to treat food as an equal level biological system. The project tells a new story of body and microbiotas by visualizing how microbes control our mental state in 2050 digital world.
Project Type
Personal project of design research class
Project Length
3 months
Key Words
Biotechnology Speculation
Mental Controlling System
Design Research
Responsibility
Speculation, Design Research, Interview, System Design, Storyboard, Writing, Mockup, and Illustration
01
Background
I am pretty interested in how the food will look like in the future and the relationship with the human. So I researched related topics and their driving elements.
And some changes may affect these issues:
Cultural Appropriation
Lack of Resources
Artificial Intelligence
Relationship with Human
Access of Food
02
Concept Generation
According to researches above, I built 3 possible futures of food:
Production systems
Food recycling systems
Mental functions
I believe microbiota would be a new part of the future food system, which has a great impact on both body and brain.
Human
Food Making
Balanced Relationship
Microbiota
Curing Disease
Food Resource
Adjusting personality
03
Scenario
After learning microbiota's impact on the human mental world, I kept researching how microbiotas help with human's working state, Here I would like to tell a story that how people work with different microbiotas in Biocafe, which is a futural mind control working loop in 2050.
1. Why Biocafe started?
Biocafe started by some economic, political, and technology issues


2. How Biocafe works?
Biocafe follows "MGB-B AXIS" rule.
MGB-B Axis shows that we can control mental health by affecting our microbiota. Thus Biocafe builds the connections between food and brain work to improve working mental state.
M: Microbiota
G: Gut
B: Brain
B: Biocafe
04
Story Telling
I wrote a story about how people use Biocafe to help with the scenario building.
Hi, My name is Dawn! This is 2050. I work as a designer for Google. As we all know, our company is in the Mounting View, a place of super high house prices, so as to the nearby cities. Thanks to Biocafé, I could move to Arizona to avoid high rent and work in Biocafe in front of my door instead of the Google Mount View office.
I need to present my ideas to the managers about my new project today. Because it is my first time to be responsible for a project independently, I feel a little overwhelmed. Today I came to Biocafe to prepare my presentation. First, I logged into Biocafe's app to test my latest genetic data. Second, I borrowed an XR device through a vending machine. Third, I check the equipment and order a drink. After that, I took my drink to add some spices that would change my mood. When I use it, I could see my mood index through my XR device. I placed the cup on the seasoning bar, slammed the seasoning can, and let the seasoning flow down slowly. I can also turn it to adjust the proportion of seasoning.
After the series of actions, I can see the pressure relief track in the interface is increasing.
I gradually felt that the pressure does not make me painful., and I became more energetic to complete my work. In the afternoon, I successfully completed the report. Thanks to Biocafe, I have a more relaxed mood to my task.
05
Objects in Biocafe
5 Perspectives of the final design could be:
Experience of users
What's the mental seasoning looks like? How users get it?
To answer the questions, I did some research on some nutrition support on the market and see people's attitudes and feeling towards them.
Insights
-
Group of different things looks more joyful
-
Color and the content exposed to affect the feeling of the package
-
Small is more precise
-
Transparent, metal, white leads to medical feeling
-
Warm color is more related to food
-
Green is also a general color because it reminds of plants, organic
06
Work Flow
The Biocafe will produce microbiota food by 3D printing the mixer of Protein matrix, Microbiota, and Fiber.
There is a mental seasoning bar in Biocafé that allows people to order mental seasoning and supervise their microbial status. People need to take these mental seasoning each time they begin to work Because the effect only lasts up to 24 hours.