Utilizing leftover SCOBYs from previous research activities, this project demonstrates the sustainable potential of materials grown through fermentation processes. The base material is derived from sweet tea and sugar, providing a foundation for the growth of bacterial cellulose.
Through various post-processing techniques, including the introduction of natural colorants such as beet roots, additives like coconut oil and beeswax, exposure to heat or the incorporation of other organisms like molds, the materials undergo transformative treatments. These interventions result in a diverse range of colors, textures, and finishes, reflecting the creative possibilities inherent in biofabrication processes.
Biofabrication is often regarded as a slow process involving long waiting times and approaches that hardly engage with time as a creative element. In this research project, I included the temporal dimension of digital biofabrication through crafting custom-made bioreactors to synthesize kombucha SCOBY. As SCOBY’s inherent flat morphology is often perceived to limit its functional applications in design, I presented the results of our systematic tinkering aiming at growing 3D morphologies to enhance its potential. Five biological growth mechanisms of SCOBY were identified and activated resulting in material prototypes exhibiting alternative morphological embodiments. My explorations unveil a design space that integrates the biological, physical, and temporal realms of digital biofabrication, which has been largely under-explored to date. Through fabrication showcases, the pictorial I wrote about the project offers designers a guide to explore the plural realms of SCOBY biofabrication to emphasize that ‘waiting time’ can open up design possibilities.
The goal of my thesis project was to gather knowledge about the possibilities of processing recycled Nike Grind TPU granulate and to design an innovative way to implement this material in the design of sustainable and flexible seating furniture for office environments and retail spaces. I tested various production methods with external industrial partners and finally optimized the blend for rotation moulding a height adjustable little chair.
Constructing alternative sustainable design naratives through rethinking the role of materials and making in design. We used sustainable bio materials, created from household foodwaste, to enable more than human care, repair, maintenance and regeneration of ones hair ritual.
This pictorial introduces the design process of TESSI, an interactive material experience artefact. TESSI is a shape-shifting origami fabric that embodies a ‘breaking and unbreaking’ transformation through a pleaded tessellation pattern. The transformation has been chosen by the designers as a concept to give temporal form to during initial stages of the project. TESSI’s materiality and behaviour came about through a highly intuitive material orientated process with a special focus on designing for expressive interaction.
- Human-AI Co-Creation
Over the past years, the role of AI systems in creative fields has made a shift from being a tool, to becoming a co-creator. There is an abundance of HCI research that covers the principles of human-AI interaction. They cover opportunities and challenges of co-creating with AI from a theoretical perspective. However, many co-creation studies are predominantly digital and quantitative in nature, often employing a lab-based methodology that fails to include the reality of co-creation as design practice. It remains unclear how practicing designers experience cocreation with AI, and how it shapes their design journeys, particularly when taking co-creation output from the digital into the physical world through textile sample making. This studio-based study investigates co-creating with ChatGPT3.5 in practice by taking a first-person perspective. A template was designed tonconduct diary studies. It focuses on the effect of natural language communication as a form of interaction and the resulting perceived dynamics of AI role-switching. The results of the study show that AI roles described in existing literature were insufficient to map AI agents’ dynamic adaptations according to the communication style, attitude, goals, and expectations of designers. Furthermore, the co-creation patterns that emerged between humans and AI in co-creation processes were much richer than expected. Findings are visualized in a co-creation protocol and a mapping of human’s and AI’s roles during design iterations. They are intended as a reference for designers who aim to collaborate with AI within the soft wearables field.