This week for Studio/Lab, we met with postdoctoral fellow Zhao Qin and PhD candidate Leon Dimas. Qin and Dimas are part of Professor Markus Buehler’s research group in the Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics (for more information on Buehler’s research and collaboration with CAST Inaugural Visiting Artist Tomás Saraceno, check out our conversation series on biomimicry).
The goal of Buehler’s research group is to understand and model the structure of natural materials like collagen, bone, and spider silk in the hopes that their incredible mechanical properties may be replicated in synthetic materials. Their material design traverses scales from atoms to structures. In the lab, Qin and Dimas showed us how they design and 3D-print new nature-inspired materials.