Together with Studio Samira Boon, Waag's TextileLab organised the second meetup for LABS: Future Interiors on Thursday 10 September 2020. The project LABS: Future Interiors conducts research on bacteria grown textiles as 100 percent biodegradable interior elements and as substrate for vegetation, interacting with airborne bacteria while altering and directing the airflow within public spaces. Currently, we are living in a 'new world' where we get to experience the dramatic influence that the smallest, unseen particles can have on our lives, economy and context. Following today's news and virus trends we discover micro as the new macro. Interaction with the micro worlds becomes a part of our consciousness, demanding for new behaviours and ethics.
The material we’re developing, KOMBUTEX, deals with those topics as future symbiotic interior species. It is a culture of bacteria and yeast. During this second symposium in a series of three, we will explore the strategies on how to best tell stories of new alive materials and how to evolve and adapt them to the current and future needs. The invited trendsetting, product psychology and innovation experts will start a productive conversation on the following questions:
- How can new kinds of interactive and alive materials contribute to inclusivity, safety and sustainability of the public interior?
- How to develop towards market implementation of lab-grown, alive and ever evolving materials such as KOMBUTEX?
- How can the current crisis become a catalyst for sustainable innovation in bio-design?
Programme
20.00 hrs - Welcome by Margherita Soldati & Samira Boon
20.10 hrs - Presentations by the guest speakers:
20.10 hrs - Iza Awad, chemistry research student at VU Amsterdam, on cross pollination between scientific and design experiments at the lab
20.20 hrs - Anna Sitnikova from Studio Samira Boon gives LABS: Future interiors introduction & virtual tour
20.30 hrs - Eva van den Broek, behavioural economist, on future behaviour: strategies to stimulate acceptance and preference for new and unfamiliar sustainable biomaterials
20.40 hrs - Els Zijlstra (MaterialDistrict) on the road from a petri dish to a public space, material evolution and growth: what are the steps between the first samples and real implementations in architecture and design of new innovative bio materials?
20.50 hrs - Q&A
21.00 hrs - End
Moderator: Jeroen Junte (Design Digger)
The next meetup for LABS: Future Interiors will be held on 22 October 2020. Keep an eye on our website waag.org for more information and registration.
