BIOTECHNIQUE
First published in "Vitalbaeu" in De Stijl in 1925 and further expanded upon in "On Correalism and Biotechnique: A Definition and Test of a New Approach to Building Design in Architectural Record in 1933, biotechnique is the science of a design that is "a deliberate polarization of natural forces towards a specific human purpose, where the designer "deals with forces, not objects.1 This design method contrasts to biotechnics, a term employed by Patrick Geddes during Kiesler's time, more commonly referred to as biomimicry, which attempts to directly imitate biological forms or processes. However, Kiesler critiqued biotechnics as a less fruitful design strategy since "nature builds by cell division with the aim of continuity, while "man can only build by joining parts together into a unique structure without continuity. In fact, he once attributed the eventual destruction of Crystal Palace to its design, which he viewed as too simple of an analogy to nature. Thus, Kiesler proposes his own biotechnique, continuous construction, which "[aimed] at the reduction of joints, not nature's method of building, but man's."1
Kiesler claimed that biotechnical design was the foil to the more traditional functional design where biotechnical design derives "from the evolutionary potentialities of man and is "inventive and "re-active in opposition to functional design, which is "oscillating and inert". Kiesler believed biotechnique to be "a force of re-generation" through the exploration of "physiotechnics instead of taking design cues from existing tools."2