Dr. Serena Camere

Post Doc - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

[email protected]

[email protected]

Supervisor

Dr. Elvin Karana

Serena Camere is a multidisciplinary industrial designer and Post-Doc researcher working with bio-based Emerging Materials. In the research project  “Growing Design”, she deals with materials grown from living organisms, such as fungi and bacteria.  

Serena concluded the PhD (cum laude) in March 2016 with a thesis titled “Experience (Virtual) Prototyping”, which explored the potential of new CAD/CAM technologies for experience-driven multisensory design. Within this research, she developed methods and tools for designers, to assist them during the use of these technologies for experience-driven design. During her MSc. in Milan, she matured a deep interest for materials that evolved into her graduation project, ‘Segni in Superficie/Timelapse’, which was awarded with honors at the Politecnico di Milano and the Honorable Mention of Lucky Strike Talented Design Award 2013. For this project, Serena collaborated with Serralunga design company to research new expressive qualities of plastics, developing a technique to make plastics age gracefully.

After the PhD, her research naturally evolved towards the Experiential Characterization of Materials, coupling her interest for materials with the research skills developed during the PhD. In the STW-funded project “Mycelium-based materials for product design”, she is in charge of conducting a series of characterization studies (both on a technical and experiential level) to assess the material’s properties. The results of these studies will be then used to stimulate the further development of the material and its embodiment in products.

During her career, Serena has been constantly seeking for opportunities to merge design practice and design research. This has led her to engage in several design contests and projects, in parallel to the academic career. In the past, Serena has collaborated with design studios and design companies, such as Skitch, Serralunga, Alessi, Woodnotes, Camparisoda, Eurochocolate, Design Innovation and Fiat-Chrysler.

PROJECT (2016-2017)

GROWING DESIGN

One of the challenges of this century is to transform our current economy into an eco-friendly and self-sustaining system. An innovative approach is the use of mycelium for the development of materials. Mycelium is an interwoven network of fungal filamentous cells called hyphae. Fungi form these mycelia on a wide variety of organic substrates. Mushroom forming fungi are known for their efficient colonization of ligno-cellulosic substrates like wood and straw. In this project, we aim to develop a palette of mycelium-based composite materials with different physical properties ranging from elastic to rigid, water-absorbing to water-repellent, and porous to compact. The MELAB Post Doc researcher, Serena Camere, explores how mycelium based materials are experienced in products. The results of the research support further development of the material. 

Publications

1. Camere, S., Karana, E. (2017). Growing Materials for Product Design. In Alive. Active. Adaptive: Proceedings of International Conference on Experiential Knowledge and Emerging Materials (EKSIG 2017), June 19-20, Delft, the Netherlands, pp. 101-115.

2. Karana, E., Blauwhoff, D., Hultink, E. J., Camere, S. (in preparation, available upon request), When The Material Grows: A Case Of Material Driven Design

3. Camere, S., Schifferstein, H.N.J. & Bordegoni, M. (2016). Materializing experiential visions into sensory properties. The use of the Experience Map. In Proceedings of Design and Emotion 2016, September 27-30 (pp.201-210) (Best Paper Award)

4. Camere, S. (2016). Experience (Virtual) Prototyping. The use of virtual technologies to support experience-driven design process (Doctoral dissertation, Politecnico di Milano, Italy).

5. Camere, S., & Bordegoni, M. (2016). A lens on future products: an Expanded notion of prototyping practice. In Proceedings of DESIGN2016, Dubrovnik, Croatia, May 16-19.

6. Camere, S., & Bordegoni, M. (2016). Unfolding the notion of Experience (Virtual) Prototyping: A Framework for Prototyping in an Experience-Driven Design Process. Journal of Integrated Design and Process Science, 20(2), 17-30.

7. Caruso, G., Camere, S., & Bordegoni, M. (2016). System based on abstract prototyping and motion capture to support car interior design. Computer-Aided Design and Applications, 13(2), 228-235.

8. Bordegoni, M., Camere, S., Caruso, G., & Cugini, U. (2015). Body tracking as a generative tool for experience design. In International Conference on Digital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management (pp. 122-133). Springer International Publishing.

9. Camere, S., & Bordegoni, M. (2015). A strategy to support experience design process: the principle of accordance. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 16(4), 347-365.

10. Camere, S., Caruso, G., Bordegoni, M., Di Bartolo, C., Mauri, D., & Pisino, E. (2015). Form follows data: a method to support concept generation coupling experience design with motion capture. In DS 80-5 Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 15) Vol 5: Design Methods and Tools-Part 1, Milan, Italy, 27-30.07. 15.

11. Camere, S., Schifferstein, H. N., & Bordegoni, M. (2015). The experience map. A tool to support experience-driven multisensory design. In Proceedings of DesForm 2015 (pp.147-155), 13-17 October, Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

12. Camere, S., & Bordegoni, M. (2014). The Role of the Designer in the Affective Design Process: the Principle of Accordance. In Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Applied Human Factors and Engineering (pp. 66-77).

13. Gatti, E., Bordegoni, M., & Camere, S. (2014). Experiences and Senses: An experimental based methodology for design optimization. In Proceedings of 9th International Conference on Design & Emotion (pp.340-348), October 8-10, Bogota, Colombia.

CLARICE RISSEEUW

PhD Candidate – Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.

[email protected]

Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Elvin Karana

Dr. Holly McQuillan

Dr. Joana Martins

Clarice is a PhD candidate at the TU Delft, exploring the potential of flavobacteria’s living colour as responsive medium. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design Engineering as well as a master’s degree in Integrated Product Design from the same university. During her studies in Delft and an exchange program at the NTNU, Norway, she was more and more attracted to bio design as it was the perfect way to combine her passions for design and nature. She started working with flavobacteria during her graduation project, in which she characterized, captured and communicated this organism’s vivid structural colourations. Afterwards, she joined Materials Experience Lab as a biodesign researcher of Caradt to continue her research. Still amazed by this beautiful microorganism, Clarice has now returned to the TU Delft as a PhD candidate, supervised by Prof. Dr. Elvin Karana, Dr. Holly McQuillan and Dr. Joana Martins.

Current Project

The PhD research focuses on exploring the potential of flavobacteria’s living colour as responsive medium. Bridging microbiology and design, we aim to take flavobacteria out of the lab and develop a living responsive material able to communicate through vivid colourations. Here we envision soft interfaces that can be activated by the user, offering unique possibilities for interaction design.

PROF. Valentina Rognoli

Associate Professor - Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Co-Founder and Co-Head of Materials Experience Lab - Italy

[email protected]

dipartimentodesign.polimi.it

Valentina Rognoli is Associate Professor in the Design Department at the School of Design, Politecnico di Milano. Here, she studied, and began her academic carrier focused on Materials for Design. She has been a pioneer in this field, starting almost twenty years ago and establishing an internationally recognised expertise on the topic both in research and education. For her PhD, she undertook a unique and innovative study on a key but a little treated topic that is the expressive-sensorial dimension of materials of Design and their experiential aspects. This research has greatly influenced the teaching methodologies on materials at the School of Design.

At present, her research and teaching activities are focusing on pioneering and challenging topics as DIY-Materials for social innovation and sustainability; Bio-based and circular Materials; Urban Materials and Materials from Waste and food Waste; Materials for interactions and IoT (ICS Materials); Speculative Materials; Tinkering with materials, Materials Driven Design method, CMF design, emerging materials experiences, and material education in the field of Design.

At the institutional level, she was involved for the last two year in the Technical and Scientific Committee of the Product Design course as supervisor of the internationalisation process, and part of the Board of Professors of the PhD Programme in Design.

She participates as principal investigator in a European Project called Made, co-funded by Creative Europe Programme of The European Union, which aims at boosting talents towards circular economies across Europe (http://materialdesigners.org/).

Moreover, she is the author of over 50 publications. She organised international workshops and events, invited speaker and reviewer for relevant journals and international conferences. Many international scholars recognised in the scientific community follow, inspire and appreciate her research and educational approach.

Short mission statement

Raising sensibility and making professional designers and future designers conscious of the infinite potential of materials and processes.

Publications

1. Ayala-Garcia, C., Rognoli, V. (2017) The New Aesthetic of DIY-Materials,The Design Journal, 20:sup1, S375-S389

2. Karana, E., Giaccardi, E., Rognoli, V. (2017) Materially Yours. In book: Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Product Design, Publisher: Routledge, Ed. Jonathan Chapman, pp.206-221

3. Parisi, S., Rognoli, V., Sonneveld, M.H.  (2017) Material Tinkering. An inspirational approach for experiential learning and envisioning in product design education, The Design Journal, 20:sup1, S1167-S1184

4. Rognoli, V., Ayala-Garcia, C. (2017) Material Activism. New hybrid scenarios between design and technology. Cuadernos 70 Journal, Universidad de Palermo, N 70-2018 pp. 105-115 ISSN 1668-0227.

5. Rognoli, V., Ayala-Garcia, C., Bengo, I. (2017) DIY-Materials as enabling agents of innovative social practices and future social business in: Proceedings of International Congress of Design FORMA 2017, Cuba. (On Press).

6. Ayala-Garcia, C., Rognol, V., Karana, E. (2017). Five Kingdoms of DIY Materials for Design. In Alive. Active. Adaptive: Proceedings of International Conference on Experiential Knowledge and Emerging Materials (EKSIG 2017), June 19-20, Delft, the Netherlands, pp. 222-234.

7. Sauerwein, M., Karana, E., Rognoli, V. (2017) Revived Beauty: Research into Aesthetic Appreciation of Materials to Valorise Materials from Waste in Sustainability 9(4), 529. April 2017.

8. Parisi S., Rognoli V., Ayala C. (2016). Designing Materials Experiences through Passing of Time, Material Driven Design Method applied to Mycelium based Composites. In: Proceedings of 10th International Conference on Design & Emotion, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 2016 pp.239-255.

9. Rognoli V., Ayala C., Parisi S., (2016). The emotional value of Do-it-yourself materials. In: Proceedings of 10th International Conference on Design & Emotion, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 2016. Pp. 233-241.

10. Rognoli, V., Bianchini, M., Maffei, S., & Karana, E. (2015). DIY Materials. Special Issue on Emerging Materials Experience. Materials and Design, vol. 86, pp. 692–702; DOI 10.1016/j.matdes.2015.07.020.

11. Rognoli V., (2015). Dynamism and imperfection as emerging materials experiences. A case study. In: Proceedings of DesForm 2015 - Aesthetics of Interaction: Dynamic, Multisensory, Wise. 9th International Conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement, Politecnico di Milano, IT; 10/2015.

12. Rognoli V., Karana, E. (2014). Towards a New Materials Aesthetic Based on Imperfection and Graceful Ageing. In: E. Karana, O. Pedgley, O., & V. Rognoli (Eds.) Materials Experience: Fundamentals of Materials and Design (pp. 145-154). Butterworth-Heinemann: Elsevier, UK.

13. Rognoli V., (2010). A broad survey on expressive-sensorial characterization of materials for design education. Metu, Journal of the Faculty of Architecture, vol. 27; p. 287-300. DOI 10.4305/METU.JFA.2010.2.16

Davine Blauwhoff

Researcher - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

[email protected]

davineblauwhoff.nl

Supervisor

Dr. Elvin Karana

Ir. Mark Lepelaar

In 2016 Davine Blauwhoff (26) graduated as an Industrial Designer from Delft University of Technology. Her previous studies include a bachelor program Industrial Design at the University of Technology Eindhoven and the propaedeutic year at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Apart from education, she enjoys various sports (field hockey and athletics) and expresses her creativity by making interior design products or cooking spectacular food!

Throughout the years of studying design, at different institutions, she developed a strong interest in materials. To her, materials are a source of inspiration and a way to express ideas. During her graduation she did a Material Driven Design project where Fungi (mycelium) was the point of departure. Of course this has to be one of her favorite materials! Slightly more conventional, she is very fond of wood (especially Olive wood) and finds ceramics very exciting to work with.

As a graduated industrial designer, Davine positions herself between design, materials and research and has a strong interest in innovation and sustainability. Throughout the design process she thoroughly analyzes, explores and experiments in a structured way. Preferring to visualize, shape and detail her ideas through prototyping, she can translate her creativity into something tangible. In her work she pays a lot of attention to aesthetics where both shape and material integrate to support its function and product interaction.

Currently Davine has two part-time occupations, which are both material driven: 1) Freelance design researcher at TU Delft on a project with waste fibers & bio-plastics (Recurf) and 2) Junior researcher at CoE BBE (Centre of Expertise Biobased Economy) working with mycelium for the building industry. Prior working experiences comprise an internship at Studio Kees, an industrial Design agency, and Materia, an online material library. 

CURRENT PROJECT

RECURF

The residents of Amsterdam produce an average of 17kg of textile waste per person per year. Of this, only 16% is collected separately. The rest end up as residual waste and will be incinerated. Only apart of the separated gathered textile is suitable for reuse or high quality recycling. The combination of textile wastefibres and bio-based plastics produce new materials with unique properties. Together with clothing collection organization Sympany, the AUAS is doing research to the possibilities of making lasting products with the discarded textiles of the inhabitants of Amsterdam. But also companies as Starbucks and Schiphol airport have textile waste flows; a unique circular product and business model arises by processing these for example in furniture for their own shops or departure and arrival halls.

In this project, Materials Experience Lab Researcher, Davine Blauwhoff, explores the design potential of waste textile-PLA composite materials. Applying the Material Driven Design (MDD) method (link), Davine develops unique materials and product applications which bring the unique qualities of the material forward.

PUBLICATIONS

1. Karana, E., Blauwhoff, D., Hultink, E. J., Camere, S. (in preparation, available upon request), When The Material Grows: A Case Of Material Driven Design

PATRIZIA D’OLIVO

Post Doc - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

[email protected]

Supervisors

Dr. Elvin Karana

Patrizia has recently joined the Material Experience Lab as a PostDoc design researcher to investigate the concept  of ‘Material Branding’.  Her research interests and experiences lies both in the material and interaction design domain.

She held a BSc in Industrial Design (cum laude) and a MSc in Design & Engineering from Politecnico di Milano (Italy). Her exploration of the material world began during her master graduation project where she focused on the investigation of sensorial properties of materials and she dived into the discipline of Sensory Metrology. The project, a collaboration between Politecnico di Milano and the Sensomines group of the Ecole des Mines de Saint-Étienne, was founded by the OSEM program of the French Ministry for Industry. The result of the project, named ‘Sensorialist’ has been awarded with the Targa Giovani in the ADI Design Index 2013 (www.adidesignindex.com/en/sensorialist), selected for the XXIII Compasso d’Oro Award competition and presented in several conferences.

In 2014 following her interest on materials but attracted by the possibility to merge it with interactive technologies, she joined the research project ‘Material Practices of Connectedness’ under the supervision of Pr. dr. Elisa Giaccardi and Dr. Elvin Karana at the Delft University of Technology. The project resulted in ‘Geist’ a family of connected objects for people living outside their native country to help them to develop and maintain a sense of belonging and identity.  (www.tudelft.nl/io/onderzoek/research-labs/connected-everyday-lab/geist/).

The curiosity towards artifacts capable to exploit the materiality of technology as a means of interaction between people dealing with disruptive situations brought her to start her PhD journey on the topic of “Tactful Objects for Sensitive Settings”.  Her work has been carried out in a multidisciplinary project named ‘Meedoen=Groeien!’ (Participating is Growing), a collaboration among the Connected Everyday Lab (connectedeverydaylab.org, TU Delft), the Prinses Maxima Centre for Paediatric Oncology (Utrecht)  and HandicapNL. Through a Research-Through-Design approach, she focused on understanding how a New Normal can be built in response to life-disruptive events using tactful and responsive interactive artifacts; and how those artifacts can be designed in order fulfil this goal. She specifically explored the potential of interactive artifacts in supporting the psychosocial wellbeing of families dealing with the demanding and stressful condition of childhood cancer. The work, helped in framing Tactfulness as a foundamental expressive quality for the materiality of technology used in sensitive settings and defining guidelines for the design of innovative interactive artifacts attuned to sensitive settings.

Current Project

MATERIAL BRANDING

Understanding how material experiences are constructed concerning a society’s norms, beliefs and culture is particularly important in introducing new materials to societies. Material can elicit different experiences when applied in different products and these experiences are highly affected by the way a product and its material are narrated when its first launch. This way of narrating and introducing a material is what we labelled as ‘Material Branding’, and it is the concept that we are going to explore in this project. Specifically, throughout this exploration, our aim is to provide an understanding of the collective effects of different material/product/narrative aspects within a digital domain (e.g. company websites, design blogs, etc.) for newly Bio-Fabricated materials, namely materials made by living organisms, such as fungi and bacteria.

JIWEI ZHOU

PhD Candidate - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

[email protected]

Instagram: @jiwei_zhou_ @the_tea_recipes

SUPERVISORS

Prof. Dr. Elvin Karana

Prof. Dr. Elisa Giaccardi

Dr. Zjenja Doubrovski

Jiwei graduated from Tongji University in Shanghai with Bachelor of Engineer in Industrial Design. She then completed “Design for Interaction” master track and obtained Master of Science at Delft University of Technology. Throughout her growth towards a designer and a design researcher she has been fascinated with materials and their relationships with people. Her bachelor thesis developed a clay-like material from tea waste from the tea industry in her hometown Sichuan in China. In her master thesis, in collaboration with Diana Scherer - who developed Interwoven textile grown from plant roots, she explored the potential of digital bio-fabrication with plant roots in weaving three dimensional artefacts (supervised by Elvin Karana and Jun Wu). As a designer she aims to create things that bring new perspectives and inspirations to both people and our society.Jiwei’s design practices usually departure from novel materials, with a special focus on emerging experiences and social implications they bring to human society. Her main research fields are bio-based materials, “growing design” and “living artefacts”.

Current Project

“HABITALITIES” WITH LIVING ARTEFACTS

As a PhD candidate at the Materials Experience Lab of Delft University of Technology, she studies "habitabilities of living artefacts". To raise critical questions about our social relationship with living materials, her current design practice investigates mediums and ways to augment the expressions of well-being of photosynthetic micro-organisms that are in a mutualistic relationship with humans, thus promoting "habitabilities" for both humans and our living cohabitants.

Prof. DR. Elvin Karana

Professor - Delft University of Technology

Co-Founder and Co-Head of Materials Experience Lab - The Netherlands

[email protected]

io.tudelft.nl

Elvin Karana is Professor of Materials Innovation and Design in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology. Giving emphasis to materials’ role in design as experiential and yet deeply rooted in their inherent properties, Elvin explores and navigates the productive shifts between materials science and design for materials and product development in synergy. Over the last years she developed theories, tools and methods to enable the understanding of materials experience actionable in material-driven design practice. In 2015, she co-founded the international research group Materials Experience Lab with Valentina Rognoli (Politecnico di Milano). Elvin has over 80 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals and conferences. She is the main editor of Materials Experience: Fundamentals of Materials and Design (Elsevier, 2014). In 2019, she founded the creative biodesign research lab Material Incubator, that aims at designing materials that incorporate living organisms, and exploring their potential in fostering an alternative notion of the everyday. Material Incubator brings together researchers and practitioners from Avans University of Applied Sciences and Delft University of Technology.