Implementation
Lighting is widely used in several aspects of our lives and is fundamental for the function of society. It is extensively utilized in many situations such as illuminating our paths of travel and homes, creating a safe space, artistic expression, and a form of decoration. To recreate the broad usage of lighting, we envisioned Life Bulb being implemented in society in three manners; a source of ambient outdoor lighting, a medium for art, and a personal consumer product that acts as an educational tool.
AMBIENT OUTDOOR LIGHTING
We envision our biological lighting system as an ambient outdoor source of illumination in parks, boardwalks, backyards, campsites, outdoor venues in restaurants, and underpasses. While Life Bulb is not as bright as LEDs, lighting in this context is often used for decorative purposes, providing a suitable niche for the implementation of Life Bulb. With the overuse of bright, intense lighting in situations that do not need bright illumination, our sustainable alternative would have less of an impact on light pollution, and would reduce the carbon impact of electrical light. Through this, we intend to show the power of synthetic biology, bringing nature closer to the people.
With Life Bulb integrated into community spaces, like "The Sails" an an iconic landmark in our home city, we a propose several Life Bulb designs in architecture. See Hardware for a more in-depth view of the design.
MEDIUM FOR ART
Lighting has been used as a form of art and decorates our cities through creative architecture in many ways. In our public opinion survey, 83.3% indicated that they would see an art exhibition that showcased bioluminescence. See Integrated Human Practices for a statistical analysis and further results of this survey. With the indication of the public being interested in bioluminescent art, our team saw Life Bulb as a form of artistic expression, connecting the public with nature.
To further demonstrate Life Bulb’s potential as an artistic medium, we partnered with Les Louis, a local Indigenous artist from the Sylix Okanagan Nation, to create traditional forms of art. See Integrated Human Practices for a detailed description of our talks with Mr. Louis and feedback we received on our project in attempting to achieve proper community integration.
Our team strongly believes that in order to achieve this integration, it is necessary to include the voices of First Nation community members on a path to Truth and Reconciliation in Canada.
Historically, Indigenous peoples have been underrepresented in STEM research, emphasizing the importance of such collaboration. Les Louis envisions Life Bulb adapted to his preferred medium, with our bioluminescent cyanobacteria illuminating his wood carvings. Depicted to the right, Les recounts the story of the Birth of Sunlight as told by the Sylix Okanagan people.
"The stumps represent the moon and stars, and the other the sun and plants. The storyboard is a story about how the animal people wanted to explore the upper world as they had heard from Bald Eagle that it had everything in abundance they could want. All the animals thought of a plan, everyone shot arrows up to make a ladder, all failed except Chickadee, who had a powerful bow and arrows, s/he shot arrow after arrow up into the sky until the arrows made a ladder, having shot arrow into arrow... the image is representing Chickadee making the arrow ladder up into the sky, thus the clouds representing the upper world, Coyote is standing there unimpressed as he felt he should have been the one to achieve that, they are both standing on the earth lines, There are mountain images, lakes, and a river, all just representing life." ~ Les Louis
INDOOR LAMP
The decorative light industry is expanding among our society and we hope to utilize this niche for widescale implementation of Life Bulb. Specifically, the growth of the decorative lighting industry is predicted to increase by 3.1% annually.(1) With this in mind, we designed a home-use lamp for Life Bulb, marketed towards the youth. Inspired by the current trend of decorating rooms with LED lights among teens, this lamp will function as a source of decorative lighting. In addition, our team has developed a comprehensive instructional manual to care of the cyanobacteria, utilize the Life Bulb hardware, and provide fun information about GMOs to reduce the stigma of synthetic biology. This indoor lamp will be used an an educational tool to inspire the next generation of synthetic biologists.
SAFETY & WASTE MANAGEMENT
A significant concern is the spread of cyanobacteria polluting our waterways and the release of genetically modified organisms. To prevent potential leakage of the genetically modified cyanobacteria, Life Bulb is designed with secondary containment. Any cracks or leaks will be contained in the first layer. Another concern is the material waste generated from our products. To mitigate this potential issue, Life Bulb uses a milkman service where materials and content will be reused and recycled. As a form of waste management, the product can be packaged and shipped to a disposal center, and the contents, materials, and dead cyanobacteria will be appropriately managed by trained professionals to handle the genetically modified organisms. Many of these contents can be reused to make new Life Bulbs, thus contributing to the circular life cycle and economy of these products. See Hardware for a more in-depth view of the design using Solidworks modelling of the internal components and Communication to learn more about the educational outreach and instructional manual.
REFERENCES
Decorative lighting market size, share: Global Industry Report, 2025. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/decorative-lighting-market (accessed Oct 8, 2022).