mr. R. (Riel) Bessai

mr. R. (Riel) Bessai

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Riel Bessai is a PhD candidate in Regenerative Design at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. He researches how material design practices can mediate between technical and social systems to create wellbeing for communities and ecosystems.

Riel’s research concerns itself with the climate crisis, and focuses on the concept of carbon sequestration, where CO2 is removed from the atmosphere. According to the IPCC, carbon sequestration will be vital to preventing runaway global warming. However, present approaches have fallen short of bending down the emissions curve.

Building from his award-winning Master’s thesis (“The artificial carbon sink”) Riel’s PhD began by investigating the use of carbon-negative materials in design. However, his research unveiled the limitations of considering materials alone as an approach to sustainability. Climate change is equally a social problem, driven by infinite economic growth on a finite planet, and the dissolution of social relations and values that sit outside of the market but are vital for more-than-human flourishing.

Looking at carbon sequestration instead from a Degrowth perspective, Riel investigates how designers working towards climate action might also promote a transition away from these flawed socio-economic paradigms. By imagining and testing design practices centered on carbon – building locally with carbon-negative materials, ecological regeneration and greening, and soil care – from within alternate social and economic systems, particularly The Commons, his research strives to elaborate new designerly approaches that simultaneously sequester carbon and create community wellbeing.

Riel’s approach to research is practice-oriented, using real-world projects in community contexts to explore and test theoretical concepts. He also co-founded Studio-Method, a design and architecture practice based in Rotterdam, with TU Delft architecture graduate Pedro Pantaleone.

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