  Remodelling of biological tissue, due to changes in microstructure, is
treated in the continuum mechanical setting. Microstructural change is
expressed as an evolution of the reference configuration. This evolution is
expressed as a point-to-point map from the reference configuration to a
remodelled configuration. A ``preferred'' change in configuration is considered
in the form of a globally incompatible tangent map. This field could be
experimentally determined, or specified from other insight. Issues of global
compatibility and evolution equations for the resulting configurations are
addressed. It is hypothesized that the tissue reaches local equilibrium with
respect to changes in microstructure. A governing differential equation and
boundary conditions are obtained for the microstructural changes by posing the
problem in a variational setting. The Eshelby stress tensor, a separate
configurational stress, and thermodynamic driving (material) forces arise in
this formulation, which is recognized as describing a process of self-assembly.
An example is presented to illustrate the theoretical framework.
