Interwoven: Designing Biodigital Objects with Plant Roots 3

Master Thesis Jiwei Zhou August 2019 INTERWOVEN: DESIGNING BIODIGITAL OBJECTS WITH PLANT ROOTS EXPLORING MATERIAL STRUCTURE AND EXPERIENCE 2 INTERWOVEN: DESIGNING BIODIGITAL OBJECTS WITH PLANT ROOTS 3 This ptoject is based on Interwoven, a plant root textile created by Diana Scherer, in collaboration with Material Experience Lab of Industrial Design Engineering faculty of Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. This project in under non-disclosure agreement with Diana Scherer, so some research results have been only included in the confidential appendix. Project - Designing BioDigital Objects with Interwoven Exploring Root Structure and Experience Supervisory Team - Chair Elvin Karana | [email protected] Mentor Jun Wu | [email protected] In Collaboration with - Root Textile Interwoven Creator Diana Scherer http://dianascherer.nl Material Experience Lab http://materialsexperiencelab.com Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering Delft University of Technology Submission Date 16 Aug 2019 Author Zhou, Jiwei [email protected] 4 INTERWOVEN: DESIGNING BIODIGITAL OBJECTS WITH PLANT ROOTS PREFACE 5 PREFACE - “The world will be moving from things that are fabricated to things that are farmed; from things artists and craftsmen never called Interwoven since for their professional help that are constructed to things that are grown.” stop discussions of anti- 2015. In this project, I am and advice. And I want - Carol Collet, 2018 industrial. However it is very lucky to learn from her to thank Diana Scherer interesting to see that, and collaborate with her for sharing her many About 140 years ago, Arts every time and age has and Material Experience years’ experience with and Crafts Movement its own way of making it Lab established by my Interwoven. began in Britain and happen. From aesthetics, supervisor Elvin Karana in flourished in Europe and to the materials designers TU Delft. Thank everyone who North America between use, to the way of helped me in the process 1880 and 1920, influencing manufacturing in our age. I am a second year master for studies of material Japan in the 1920s. Against student in Design for samples. Thank Mascha and industrialization, avant- On the ride of collaborating Interaction. My interest in Tessa for technical support guards called for traditional with living organisms to biology and materials has in the Applied Lab. crafts and a sense of nature produce everyday objects, driven me to go deeper into back in daily life. Paris we see that today, many bio-digital manufacturing Thank you all, my dear metro station Abbesses, designers, artists, material and bio-material design friends, for being there by Hector Guimard (1900); scientists, and biologists during two years of studies. during my hard times. Lithograph by Alphonse are working together for In this project, I am trying Mucha (1897); Lamp by digital biofabrication. to explore development Louis Comfort Tiffany of Interwoven in the (1900–1910); Wall cabinet by Diana Scherer is one of the perspective of material Louis Majorelle; Interior of pioneerings in our age. She structures to create Hôtel Tassel by Victor Horta has been training roots, everyday objects. (1892-3). using digital fabrication, to form beautiful textiles Here, I want to thank my Since then, designers, supervisors Elvin and Jun 6 INTERWOVEN: DESIGNING BIODIGITAL OBJECTS WITH PLANT ROOTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TERMINOLOGIES 7 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TERMINOLOGIES - - This thesis is the graduation project of the master study: From material understanding phase, it has been found Interwoven Design for Interaction at Delft University of Technology. that Interwoven not only can weave horizontally, but Textile material grown from plant roots developed by Diana Scherer. The In collaboration with an visual artist Diana Scherer in also vertically with 3D printed porous units and serve start point of this thesis project and will be explored and developed during Amsterdam and Material Experience Lab in Industrial as glue, to form a stronger thus more durable holistic the project. Design Engineering faculty, the project follows material volume. Extruding patterns on surface, serving as the driven design for a material called Interwoven developed skin of the structure, invite people to inspect and touch. by the visual artist. The material has shortcomings and is too fragile to be applicable product material, but it has A conflict and collaboration between natural growth of great potential to be a sustainable substitute material roots and human manipulation is presented through Material Driven Design (MDD) Material Tinkering for design. The goal of this project is to follow Material the root structure. Therefore, a material experience A design method to facilitate Sensory encounters and hands-on manipulation in material understanding, Driven Design method developed by Elvin Karana in the vision is created: designing for material experiences whilst promoting design activity oriented to enrich desired experiences same faculty, and develop Interwoven into a durable when a particular material is the in final designs (Notion brought forward by the Bauhaus) - tinkering with and applicable material for product design. to exhibit the glue-ability of Interwoven through a daily point of departure in the design the material is to get insights on what the material afords, its technical/ object co-created by roots and digital manufactured process. mechanical properties, as well as how it can be shaped/ embodied in Researching the potential of mycelium design, the main structures and bring forward the collision and products. question for this thesis is defined as follows: collaboration between natural growth and man-made world. Digital Bio-fabrication How to make Interwoven more durable and appli- It is at the cross field of biology and cable in people’s daily life through re-designing With the Vision as basis for the idea generation, design, where designers couple material structure? and technical performance tests for the co-creation biological tools with advanced samples, five product concepts have been developed. computer technologies. There’s a pre-research of the graduation project, done Considering to apply the product in daily scenarios and by the author and other two master students from fitting it to the vision, the final concept is to use roots the same track in the faculty. As a result from the growing through porous descrete beads to form 3D pre-research, a material tinkering taxonomy has been volume and imitates mass-produced IKEA ALSEDA puf. summarised to help designers start their experiments The imitation would invite people to inspect and try out Obstacles Porous Units for material development. This project takes “altering the strength of the compositional structure, which will The objects put in the way of root The porous descrete obstacles put in the material structure“ as the challenge and perspective. surprise people with a conflict between delicate pattern growth. They prevent roots going growing media for roots to glue together. The and the strength of product body. Technical tests have directly downward, but make roots relationship between roots and poroous obsta- Besides that, the project also emphasizes the digital been done to investigate into the compressive strength take a detour. cles during material tinkering process. layer of manipulating a bio-material. With the help of and porous units have been improved. one of the project supervisors - Jun Wu’s research in the Growing Vessel Gravitropism generative design field, and the preminary knowledge The thesis concludes with a self-evaluation of the design A container or space designed for Gravitropism (also known as geotropism) is a coordinated process of in parametric design and programmable material goal: both technically (durability) and experientially containing seeds and therefore diferential growth by a plant or fungus in response to gravity pulling on of the student, the project managed to use digital (applicable, blend of nature and man-made). Technically, their roots. it. Gravity can be either “artificial gravity” or natural gravity. It is a general manufacturing tools for material structural change. durability is tackled with creating compositional feature of all higher and many lower plants as well as other organisms. structure with 3D printed porous units, and experientially During the material understanding phase in the creating a hybrid blend by this structure and a skin method, more than 50 experiments and iterations of growing traces. And a set of recommendations for have been conducted to investigate material structure further research and development to make the material Material Property vs. Quality possibilities. Amongst the number of samples, insights more various, sustainable and ethical. The main The properties of materials are objective and measurable. They are out have been concluded and a mapping of root behaviour elements recommended include exploring more porous there. The qualities on the other hand are subjective: they are in here: in has been made. Experiential studies with potential structures, scaling up the product, preventing molds, our heads. They are ideas of ours. They are part of that private view of the samples have been conducted. other material potentials, making production more world which artists each have within them. We each have our own view of sustainable and end life recycling. what stoniness is. (Tim Ingold, 2011) 8 INTERWOVEN: DESIGNING BIODIGITAL OBJECTS WITH PLANT ROOTS 9 CONTENTS - 1 2 3

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