Exaptation: Nothing New, Everything to Reinvent

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When we talk about innovation, we tend to think of something that did not exist before: a new technology, a new material or a completely new product.

But innovation can also come from the ability to look at something that already exists and imagine that it could do, or mean, something different. It is not always necessary to invent something from scratch.

In biology, there is a term for describing this phenomenon: exaptation. It refers to the process through which a characteristic originally developed for a specific function is later used for a different purpose. In other words, a solution changes context and finds a new application that was not intended when it first emerged.

It is a concept that we at V12 Design find particularly relevant to design as well, because it shifts the focus from the act of inventing to the ability to recognise potential. A designer can create something new, but can also simply observe an object, a technology or a behaviour from a different perspective and glimpse possibilities that others have not yet seen.

To understand what this means in practice, let’s start with an example that is very close to our everyday lives: IKEA. The now-famous IKEA hacks show how users can reinterpret existing products, giving them functions different from those originally intended. A shelf can become a desk, a storage box can turn into a piece of furniture, and a cabinet can take on an entirely new role simply because someone has recognised a different potential in it.

This is a very concrete form of bottom-up exaptation, where people’s observation and creativity generate innovation themselves. The product is placed in a new context and, through its use, acquires a new function or meaning.

Exaptation, however, can also become a conscious design process, when a company recognises the potential of an existing solution and decides to develop it in a new context.

This is the case, for example, with LEGO Serious Play. The LEGO construction system is used in a context completely different from the one we traditionally associate with play and building, becoming a tool for communication, problem-solving, training and co-design processes within organisations.

In reality, the concept of exaptation existed long before the term entered the vocabulary of innovation, and some of the most iconic cases in the history of design and technology already embodied its principle perfectly.

Before It Had a Name

Among the many cases that have, unintentionally, tested the principle of exaptation in the world of innovation, one of the best-known is Post-it.

The coloured sticky note we have all used at least once originated from an adhesive developed by 3M that had properties similar to glue, but was considerably weaker. Its distinctive feature — or flaw — was its ability to stick and peel away easily. It was only later that Spencer Silver and Art Fry recognised the potential of this unexpected property and translated it into a new type of adhesive paper product.

Velcro® also emerged from a lateral perspective. In 1941, George de Mestral observed how the tiny hooks on burdock burrs attached themselves to his dog’s fur and to the fabric of his clothes. Inspired by this natural structure, he developed the principle behind the hook-and-loop fastening system.

In 1957, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes were trying to create a three-dimensional wallpaper by laminating two sheets of plastic with air bubbles trapped between them. The result was Bubble Wrap — a material that proved completely useless as wallpaper, but perfect for protecting packaging!

These examples have become icons of how innovation can emerge when a solution breaks free from the context for which it was originally conceived and finds an entirely new application.

From Accidental Inventions to New Crossovers

Today, however, exaptation takes on even broader forms, involving materials, products and systems that are transferred from one context to another, acquiring a new function, a new use or even a new meaning.

One example is Decathlon’s Easybreath mask. Originally designed for snorkelling, during the COVID-19 pandemic it was considered by researchers and healthcare professionals as a possible basis for devices intended for medical use. Decathlon also made the technical data and 3D model of the mask available to support experimentation.

Here, exaptation occurs when an external community recognises in an existing product a possibility that belongs to an entirely different field.

Another particularly fertile territory is materials.

In 1993, brothers Daniel and Markus Freitag were looking for a durable, waterproof material to make a bag. The solution came from discarded truck tarpaulins, combined with bicycle inner tubes and seat belts.

A conceptually similar path can be found in Stone Island, where the research behind Tela Stella, the fabric used when the brand was founded in 1982, drew inspiration from the technical properties of military truck tarpaulins. The material was reinterpreted through treatments, resins, dyes and washing processes until it became a fabric for clothing.

The same principle appears in an even more contemporary form in the Nike ISPA Link Axis, whose structure uses recycled TPU sourced from waste generated by airbags. A material associated with automotive safety systems thus finds a new role in the construction of a sneaker.

Technology Can Change Its Job Too

A similar process can also be observed throughout the history of technology.

The Wii controllers, for example, brought physical movement-based interaction into gaming through technologies such as accelerometers, which had already been used in other fields, including the automotive industry. A technology originally developed to detect changes in movement could thus become a tool for translating a player’s physical gestures into commands.

The history of Dyson is another particularly fitting example of exaptation. The starting point was the industrial cyclone systems used in sawmills to separate sawdust from air. James Dyson recognised their potential and transferred the principle into a completely different context: vacuum cleaners. It became the technological foundation of the brand’s first bagless models.

Once again, innovation emerged by transferring a principle from one context to another, through a design process based on curiosity and the ability to look beyond the boundaries of one’s own field.

In all these cases, what drives change is the reinterpretation of context, human behaviour or the meaning we attach to what is in front of us.

The most interesting aspect of exaptation for design is the realisation that a product is much more than the function for which it was originally designed. Once it enters the real world, it is used, reinterpreted, appropriated and sometimes even transformed by people. Unexpected behaviours can become new design opportunities, just as a technology developed for one industry can reveal completely different potential when viewed from another perspective.

This is why, at V12 Design, we believe that one of the most important skills a designer can develop is lateral thinking: the ability to look beyond one’s own field, observe how people actually use a product, recognise emerging behaviours and ask whether an existing solution could answer a question we had not yet thought to ask.