JIWEI ZHOU
PhD Candidate – Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
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.