Microbes are the most abundant and substantial group of organisms on the planet. And thanks to Professor Elvin Karana, they are now also a full part of the IDE research realm. On Wednesday 5 June Professor Elvin Karana gave her Inaugural Speech at the TU Delft Aula and kicked off the Centre of Design Research for Regenerative Material Ecologies (DREAM). “We continue to explore how we can embed living system thinking in material-driven design for planetary wellbeing.”
During her inaugural speech, Elvin Karana took us on a journey through her work, paying special attention to the great achievements of her PhD candidates.
Microbe-embedded living materials can advance cleaner production practices and foster care and sensibilities for other-than-human entities in our daily lives (…). If carefully designed and integrated into products, living materials can pave the way for regenerative futures.
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Elvin Karana
During her inaugural lecture, Professor Karana also shared some additional news. She announced the new Centre of Design Research for Regenerative Material Ecologies (DREAM) at the TU Delft | Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. “With a group of brilliant researchers, we continue to explore how we can embed living system thinking in material-driven design for planetary wellbeing”, she said. “This centre has a focus on living systems thinking. This way of thinking can help us reflect about the way we design a wide variety of materials, biobased materials, textiles, 3D printed materials and more.
DREAM is mostly about showing what design can do for radical sustainable production and use of materials and products. “Radical as in regenerative. We don’t only want to create cleaner materials, we also want to try to change people’s mindset and embed designer thinking in the production process of regenerative products.”
DREAM is an initiative of co-founders Elvin Karana, Zjenja Doubrovski, Holly McQuillan, Joana Martins, and Stefano Parisi.
The Centre of Design Research for Regenerative Material Ecologies (DREAM) website
