Engineering and craft are often viewed as separate means of creating: one associated with systematic and technological innovation and the other with skilled manual practice passed through generations. However, their relationship has always been intertwined. For example, the Jacquard loom encoded complex weaving patterns in chains of punched cards, inspiring the punched card systems later used to store and process information in early computers. Similarly, the Apollo Guidance Computer depended on core rope memory handwoven by skilled textile workers whose expertise could not be replicated through conventional manufacturing. Technical knowledge does not exclusively reside in laboratories; it is embedded in materials, tools and practices developed through craft.
Bioengineering is particularly well positioned to benefit from this knowledge. As devices become softer, smaller and more closely integrated with the body, performance increasingly depends on how materials are structured and assembled. For wearable and implantable devices, textiles offer the permeability, flexibility and durability needed to develop long-lasting, comfortable sensors. In a Review in this issue, Zijian Zheng and colleagues discuss fibre-architected intelligent permeable bioelectronics, or FIPEB, and their applications in digital health care. FIPEB are fibre-based bioelectronic wearable and implantable systems ranging from fibres to fabrics and mats. For example, functionalized fibres wound around elastic fibre cores can measure sweat glucose levels1 and clothing embroidered with liquid metals can enable wireless powering and data transfer2.
In FIPEBs, the architecture of the textile or fibre plays an integral part in the device’s functionality, and a key challenge is ensuring sufficient permeability without compromising performance. Fibre crafts such as knitting, weaving, braiding and embroidery offer distinct methods to programme permeability, mechanical anisotropy and electrical routing depending on the desired application. Collaboration between fibre craft workers and material engineers could not only facilitate the design of new fibre-based device architectures but also broaden technological accessibility by facilitating low-cost fabrication and repair.
Fibre-based bioelectronics are only one example. Across bioengineering, traditional crafts provide solutions to challenges in device architecture, fabrication and accessibility. For example, origami and kirigami, the arts of paper folding and cutting, have been widely used to address design challenges in bioengineered devices by enabling shape morphing and flexible design3,4. In a Comment in this issue, Yuguang Liu and colleagues further explore how classic toys and traditional crafts can be adapted to create functional and accessible engineering tools such as the Foldscope, a paper-based microscope with origami design, and the Paperfuge, a hand powered centrifuge inspired by the ancient whirligig.
The value of craft knowledge extends beyond device design as craft practices can also inform solutions to barriers in how biomedical technologies are used across populations. For example, electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) studies often disproportionately exclude Black, Hispanic and Latinx participants because kinky and curly hair can prevent the caps from sitting close to the scalp, leading to inaccurate readings5. Collaboration between hair stylists and neuroscientists found a solution in hair braiding to enable electrodes to reach the scalp without damaging the hair. Furthermore, skilled craft workers, such as scientific glass blowers, provide specialized and essential equipment for scientific experimentation, from bespoke chemistry apparatuses to the glass quartz used in semiconductors. Yet, scientific glasswork is included in a long list of endangered crafts.
“Across bioengineering, traditional crafts provide solutions to challenges in device architecture, fabrication and accessibility.”
The disappearance of traditional crafts is therefore not only a cultural loss, but also the loss of generations of accumulated knowledge about materials, fabrication and design. The loss of such skills can have a profound effect on scientific discovery. Preserving craft knowledge, through funded training programmes and online repositories, is not just cultural conservation. Investing in traditional crafts and teaching traditional practices alongside engineering could help preserve this knowledge and create opportunities to draw on established practices of making and problem solving. Bioengineering should thus consider craftspeople as technical collaborators, alongside materials scientist, clinicians and engineers. Doing so could introduce new approaches to fabrication and design while ensuring that knowledge embedded in centuries of craftwork does not disappear.
