Ice Stupa (2013-14) is an artificial glacier designed to counter climate change consequences in the region of Ladakh by Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh

Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival

Curated by Paola Antonelli

Exhibition design Studio Folder Matilde Cassani

The XXII Triennale di Milano, Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival, highlights the concept of restorative design and studies the state of the threads that connect humans to their natural environments – some frayed, others altogether severed.

The theme of the 22nd Triennale di Milano is, as the title suggests, in-depth examination of the ties between humans and our natural environment, now profoundly compromised and, in some cases, completely destroyed, looking at the role design can play in reconstituting these links.

In exploring architecture and design objects and concepts at all scales and in all materials, Broken Nature celebrates design’s ability to offer powerful insight into the key issues of our age, moving beyond pious deference and inconclusive anxiety.

By turning its attention to human existence and persistence, the XXII Triennale will promote the importance of creative practices in surveying our species’ bonds with the complex systems in the world, and designing reparations when necessary, through objects, concepts, and new systems.

Even to those who believe that the human species is inevitably going to become extinct at some point in the (near? far?) future, design presents the means to plan a more elegant ending.

It can ensure that the next dominant species will remember us with a modicum of respect: as dignified and caring, if not intelligent, beings

In 2017, Earth Overshoot Day-the estimated date when the planet’s annual supply of renewable natural resources has reached its carbon-absorbing capacity-was marked on August 2, earlier than in any year since the 1970s, when such recordings began.

In her exhibition opening press conference, Paola Antonelli focused on the importance of becoming more aware of the fragile relationship between human beings and environment also by the means of our everyday behaviors, for example by learning and promoting a new approach to the objects we use and their life cycle.

The relationship between humankind and nature comprises many different strands, and the pace with which the date has advanced suggests that some bonds may be broken beyond repair.

In order to attempt to restore those that we still can, we must move to make reparations. Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival prompts a shift in our thinking about the environment—here, treated intersectionally to include human and animal life at all scales, and economic, social, and political systems in addition to natural ecosystems.

Under these circumstances, it is not enough anymore for designers to be politically and chemically correct.

“Organic,” “green,” “environmental,” and “sustainable” are buzzwords that have been applied in earnest to design-including food and fashion-over the last two decades, as have the terms “ethical” and “aware.”

Yet, despite these noble intentions toward humans, animals, plants, and places, we are still-as individuals and communities-tracking a course of destruction through over consumption and disregard for countless forms of life, including our own.

Paola Antonelli (Senior Curator of Architecture & Design, Director of Research & Development at The Museum of Modern Art in New York) has curated an extensive exhibition that encourages normalisation of the perception that humanity may one day face extinction.

Designers can change flashy trends into more meaningful strategies imbued with agency by encouraging new behaviors using objects-from physical to digital items, speculative scenarios to functional tools, architectures to video games, and construction processes for new biological entities to old-school mending kits-as prompts and foils.

Citizens of the world have as much responsibility as designers.

Broken Nature thus demands us all to collectively apply our resources in order to constructively repair the damaged ecosystems that we inhabit and shape.

The monitoring and reparation process will require concerted efforts by interdisciplinary and international teams, by companies, industries and governments, and at grassroots levels.

In every case, design is a fundamental connective participant. Design can provide not only tactical creativity but also focus and strategy.

The aim is to reconsider our relationship with nature beyond pious deference and inconclusive anxiety and instead move toward a more constructive sense of indebtedness to the environment.

Among the reparation tools, Broken Nature will also consider experiments on social justice and new ways to generate mobility and economic development, relying on a fruitful collaboration among design, the life sciences, and the social sciences.

In that sense, the broken bonds will include such fundamental connections and constructs as family, gender, race, class, and ideas of nationhood as much as pollution, material consumption, and global warming.

The exhibition will also examine the role of new technologies. Broken Nature will thus enable us to contemplate the changed relationships that exist among designers, engineers, artists, scientist, and politicians.

These various communities are not working in an isolated way and overlapping only when called upon-a Venn diagram of ad hoc committees-but rather they are continuously cross-pollinating and influencing one another.

The XXII Triennale is a project consisting of –

1)  a digital platform, brokennature.org, that will be active during the whole exhibition,

2) a public program, a series of conferences and

3) a bilingual (Italian/English) catalogue published by Triennale di Milano in partnership with Electa, including essays by scientists, researchers, designers and critics as well as a section dedicated to international participations.

Project Catalogue

Humans must hurry to remedy the situation by restoring the bond and rebuilding what has collapsed.

Through the voices of curators, scientists, scholars, designers and artists, the catalogue reflects on certain design approaches that encourage a multifaceted and inclusive reading of themes such as climate change, immigration, intelligence artificial, politics, gender, work, the economies, social justice and natural history.

Moreover, it hopes to stimulate gratitude and respect for the systems in which people live and work, and favour an approach focused on life beyond the next few generations.

As well as being a compendium of the approximately 120 projects on show, the book serves as a publication in its own right that uses design as a prime observatory from which to explore how humans relate to their natural, social and cultural environment.

Format 19 x 24,5 cm
Binding paperback with flaps
Pages 360
Year 2019
ISBN 9788891824226
Language Italian
Genre Design
Publisher Electa

“ Broken Nature invites a deeper understanding of the complex, interconnected multispecies systems we live in, encourages us to adopt a long-term perspective, and suggests visitors adopt a series of concrete measures inspiring habits and attitudes for re-establishing our ties with nature.

Broken Nature celebrates the revolutionary power of the imagination and of inventiveness

Design should be centred not only on humans, but on the future of the whole biosphere as well. Its approaches should aim not only to correct humanity’s self-destructive course, but also to replenish our relationship with all environments and all species – including other human beings.

A concerted effort is required at all levels – grassroots, government, organisations and industries. In every realm, design should be a fundamental participant” …….. Paola Antonneli

“ Triennale confirms its intention to continue the tradition of this event by connecting it to some of the biggest issues of our time, opening that investigation to the contribution by the international community of design and architecture, and to that by all people who will visit it in the next months

How can we restore to nature that which has been taken away from it in recent centuries, and particularly in recent decades?

Broken Nature celebrates the revolutionary power of imagination and ingenuity.

Even to those who believe that the human species will become extinct in the (near? far?) future, design presents the means to plan a more elegant ending. ” ………Triennale’s President Stefano Boeri

“ Broken Nature is aimed to be an investigation on the relationships, now threatened, between humans and the natural environment.

By presenting projects of design and architecture, the exhibition explores the concept of restorative design, highlighting objects and strategies, at different scales, which rebuild the relationship between human beings and the context they live in, including social and natural ecosystems

Broken Nature invites to reflect on the measures we should take to recreate the broken link between man and nature.

Design can help unleash imagination, adopting concrete solutions to reestablish those connections with everyday gestures

Design shapes the components that affect your life. By acting as a cognitive, pragmatic and political mediator, design acts as a repair tool.

Broken Nature invites you to understand in depth the multispecies systems that surround you and encourages you to adopt a long-term perspective”. ………. Paola Antonelli

Broken Nature puts on display the work of twenty two international guests that offer their unique interpretation of the Triennale’s main theme.

The exhibits offer a reflection on current and pressing themes such as water, plastic, raw materials, food, complex systems, coexisting with different species and migration.

The result is an ambitious exploration of pollution, health, borders, unfair trade, extinction, farming, and production, including the social, cultural and economic impact of the ongoing damage done by humans.

The journey through Broken Nature is emotionally and intellectually challenging.

With unprecedented projects, historic works of art, sustainable artefacts, experiments with bio-materials and illustrating the best recycling practices, this exhibition encourages you to reflect: in fact, it’s high-time we radically changed our point of view, in an effort to re-establish the necessary relationship with the natural and social ecosystems, before it is too late.

At the end of the exhibition more and more questions arise, but some are answered too—several offering a tragic scenario.

However bleak though, what’s certain is that designers are working to find new alliances between humans and nature.

Main Projects

The themed exhibition consists of four works commissioned to international designers:

• Formafantasma (Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin)
• Neri Oxman and his research team, Mediated Matter Group, at MIT Media Lab,
• Sigil Collective (Khaled Malas, Salim Al-Kadi, Alfred Tarazi and Jana Traboulsi) based in Beirut and New York,
• Accurat, a company concerned with research and innovation in data-driven design with offices in Milan and New York (project led by Giorgia Lupi and Gabriele Rossi).

All  four projects created specifically for the event and the architecture and design projects selected to appear in the exhibition explore the concept of reconstituting design, casting light on objects and strategies on a number of different scales reinterpreting the relationship between human beings and the context they live in, including both social and natural ecosystems.

The projects propose creative approaches aimed at correcting the self-destructive course we have undertaken and rethinking our relationship with our environment and with all the animal species on the planet.

1.  Ore Streams-– Formafantasma

Formafantasma’s Ore Streams – are a series of furniture produced with electronic waste that responds to the expectation that by 2080 the biggest metal reserves will not be underground but above the surface, as ingots stored in private buildings or otherwise circulated within products such as building materials, appliances, furniture, and consumer electronics.

Ore Streams deals with the issue of electronic waste: discarded smartphones, computers and tablets whose high-value but sometimes toxic components end up in landfills.

The display shows Formafantasma’s office furniture made of repurposed electronic components, as well as a video essay and other documents resulting from the studio’s extensive research into “planned obsolescence,” an idea in commercial design in which objects are engineered to become useless before they wear out

Artificially limiting a product’s use was design’s biggest perversion

“ Recycling is only a short-term solution, there is definitely a need to produce less.

More electronic products should be built to last with replaceable components

We often talk about the positive impact design can have, but we should also remember the terrible impact that design has every day.” ………….. Simone Farresin

2  Totems Neri Oxman

Totems by Neri Oxman and the Mediated Matter Group at MIT (which studies the vital biological role of melanin as well as its societally harmful associations, and looks at the design potential of its chemical synthesis)

In the entrance, Totems by Neri Oxman, an Israeli designer and academic who experiments with melanin (the biological marker of evolution) as a possible new architectural surface, introduces the visitors to the over one hundred projects on display.

3  Birdsong

Birdsong by Sigil contemplates encounters and entanglements between humans and birds, and the associated place-related tension, via the design of an agricultural monument – a scarecrow – in Syria

Through a series of visual, representational and site-specific interventions in Syria and Italy, they seek to explore the simultaneously marvelous and terrifying metamorphoses of the Arab landscape marked by both historical and contemporary struggles.

Their contribution to Broken Nature, entitled Birdsong, investigates the relationship and entanglements that exist between birds (or “avian bodies,” which can be real or fantastical), humans, and the Syrian landscape and history.

4  Room of Change

The Broken Nature exhibition at the Triennale Milan begins with “The Room of Change” and visitors find themselves at the apex of the show’s theme, with an installation that speaks to the heart and the brain; provoking emotion and reflection.

Gabriele Rossi, Giorgia Lupi and their team at Accurat, have visualized global phenomena (such as the increase in world population and temperatures) alongside more local topics (such as the disappearance of Lake Aral or the decline in life expectancy in Cambodia) and created a sort of graphic tapestry.

With this installation, Accurat questions a communication made only of data and numbers and suggests a change of scale and perspective.

International Participants

The Nation of Plants

“la Nazione delle Piante” – The Nation of Plants – is a special immersive exhibition based on the theories of neurobiologist Professor Stefano Mancuso, with the artistic supervision of Marco Balich,

This installation is an itinerary through the natural world that emphasises how much plants are necessary for the survival of mankind.

The Nation of Plants is based on the idea that one of the ways to avoid a catastrophic future for humanity is to take a radically new approach to plants, using them not just for what they have to offer us, but also for what they can teach us.

It suggests we could better assimilate with plants by imagining them in our terms – through a mental category that is familiar to us: the ‘nation’.

“The animals are a mere 0.03% of the planet’s matter, on the contrary the plants represent the 85%

What’s more, we are referring to organisms that have extraordinary abilities as they are able to communicate, adapt and socialize.

Therefore, we have to learn to listen to them, as “plants demonstrate possible ways of resolving our problems“…………. Stefano Mancuso

professor stefano mancuso

Starting from those figures, in the exhibition Mancuso develops a simple concept: that one way to avoid a catastrophic future for mankind is to learn from plants; since they have been on this planet for much longer, plants are better adapted than us to it and will probably outlast humans because, during their evolution, they have found highly-efficient, non-predatory, solutions to cope with their ecosystems.

The Great Animal Orchestra

Exploring design and nature continues with The Great Animal Orchestra by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain of Paris, an audio-visual immersion in the sounds of nature

Audio material collected by Bernie Krause, the 80-year-old American composer and soundscape ecologist who has recorded natural sounds in remote areas since 1968, is paired with animated visuals created by the London-based studio United Visual Artists.

The Great Animal Orchestra is a video and sound installation providing an immersive journey through seven territories chosen for their ecological diversity and the richness of their biophony (the sound of animals).

Both wonder and urgency are implicit in “The Great Animal Orchestra,” an immersive piece originally commissioned by the Fondation Cartier in Paris, where it premiered in 2016.

Colorful stripes and waves wrap around two walls of a darkened, carpeted room to the sounds of wildlife — the trumpeting of elephants, for instance, or the singing of whales.

In one segment of the sound piece, a California habitat was recorded in intervals between 2004 and 2015.

In the first clip, audiences hear a cacophony of chirping birds. The last, however, is nearly silent.

“ Over 50 percent of the habitats that I’ve recorded are gone now, and that’s in 50 years. That’s no time at all.”…….. Bernie Krause

100 Projects

In addition to the commissioned works, the themed exhibition includes a selection of about 100 architecture, art and design projects from the latest 30 years.

These projects, which have played an essential role in the history and advancement of design, have in some cases had a memorable impact on society and in the way humans related to the world around them.

This is the first time that these projects are all placed within the same conversation, and in fact the same space, with the aim to unearth design’s potential to mediate societal and behavioural changes

“Capsula Mundi,” by Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel, consists of a container made of biodegradable material in which a deceased person’s ashes or body are placed. The capsule is then inserted into the ground like a seed, and a tree planted above.

Other 100 Projects include  –

Alexandra Fruhstorfer’s Transitory Yarn,
Dominique Chen’s Nuka-doko, and
Google Brain’s Whale Song – and milestones like
Pettie Petzer and Johan Jonker’s Hippo Roller,
Elemental’s Quinta Monroy housing,
Zach Lieberman et al.’s Eyewriter low-cost, open source eye-tracking system.

Martino Gamper’s 100 Chairs in 100 Days

Bee Awards

The exhibition at the 22nd Triennale di Milano also includes twenty-two International Participations promoted by the country’s respective governments,

Three international participations have been awarded with the Bee Awards:

• Australia won the Golden Bee,
• Austria won the Black Bee and
• Russia won the Wax Bee.

Australian Pavilion – Teatro Della Terra Alienata

Australia brings fantasy head-to-head with the hard facts of climate change in the Theatre of the Alienated Land by Amaia Sanchez-Velasco (in collaboration with academics and students from the Schools of Design, Architecture and Life Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney, with reference to the critical body of work of Grandeza Studio and Miguel Rodriguez-Casellas).

The team was awarded first prize by an international jury, based on the poignancy of their interpretation of the theme, and the quality and relevance of the ideas they put forward.

Imagining a utopian future for the Great Barrier Reef

Teatro Della Terra Alienata responds to the recent mass coral bleaching events that rendered visible the plausible death of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).

The exhibition frames the decay of the GBR as a wicked problem that demands alternative political imaginaries and addresses the urgency raised by recent United Nations IPCC reports.

In 2018, the Australian government decided to partially outsource the preservation of the earth’s largest living structure to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, a charity supported by major mining and insurance companies, banks, and airlines.

The current preservation of the GBR is driven by technocratic strategies in which a technological apparatus monitors and manicures the “natural spectacle.”

“ Individual actions or design solutions themselves, are not enough to fight or adapt to the drastic conditions brought about by climate change.

Scientists are telling us that the parade of ‘solutions’ have been, in fact, a parade of ‘faux solutions’.

The real question we as artists and designers have, is: Can we radically redesign life around forms of joy that do not compromise life on this planet?.

This project focuses on innovation at the level of communication. It is about mobilising audiences beyond the narrow realm of architecture and design, and it is our hope that it inspires conversations and organised action.” …………… UTS curators

Inspired by two years of research and teaching projects looking at the significant environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef, the team questions the potential for restorative design to have any real impact in solving these problems.

Combining contributions from celebrated Australian artists such as Janet Laurence, Shoufay Derz and Cigdem Aydemir, with philosophy and scientific research, the exhibition takes the form of a video installation.

Teatro Della Terra Alienata re-imagines a new fantastical future where the Great Barrier Reef is nurtured, protected and celebrated.

Meanwhile the current activities that are threatening and damaging the reef, mining, fracking and intensive agriculture, are completely dismantled.

The team argues that in order to save the Reef, a seismic shift in the way we relate to our environment is needed.

Head of School of Architecture, Francesca Hughes, praised the team for their intellectual bravery in challenging the lack of political imagination of the various actors threatening the reef’s future.

Austrian Pavilion | Circular Flows – The Toilet Revolution!

With a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Austrian design studio EOOS has developed a toilet which separates 90 percent of the urine nitrogen.

Urine separation is of greatest significance in urban catchment areas, where wastewater causes large quantities of nitrogen to flow back into the rivers.

Organization: MAK – Museum of Applied Arts,

Vienna Curators: Marlies Wirth,

Digital Culture curator, MAK.

/

Russian Pavilion ; The Moscow River Age

The Moscow River Age explores the human-river relationship and presents a timeline of stories between 1919 and 2119.

The narrative is polyphonic.

Many voices come together to reveal how the river and the people who live near it influence each other in multiple ways, and how deeply their lives are intertwined.

The Russian pavilion at the XXII Triennale di Milano explores the human-river relationship and represents a timeline of stories that spans 200 years.

It consists of 38 lockers on display with various objects inside, including screens, pictures, and models. Each of the objects corresponds to a different year – from 1919 to 2119.

The exhibition is accompanied by the sounds of “Radio Moscow River,” and one of the lockers allows you to switch between four frequencies.

According to the jury, the pavilion “The Moscow River Age” reveals the symbiotic role that the river plays in the life of the city.

“Through an elegantly presented and playful timeline of visual vignettes, the designers weave a sophisticated narrative of the river that makes it come to life. The jury was captivated by the use of the past and the future to remind us that the time for action is now,” the jury said in a statement.

Czech Republic Pavilion | Out of Power Tower

A 4.5-meter-high tower made up of used batteries, piled and truncated. From he outside, the electric batteries seduce the visitors with their shiny mosaic of logos while, internally, they reveal their worn-out dark minerals.

Out of Power Tower is a metaphor of our era, its external surface looks cosy and comforting but, digging a little deeper, we find a toxic and dangerous core.

Organization: Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague. Curator: Iva Knobloch.

OUT OF POWER TOWER – Krištof Kintera in collaboration with Rastislav Juhás, Josef Frühauf, Richard Wiesner, Matěj Al Ali, Martina Nosková.

Finland Pavilion – Everyday Experiments

Everyday Experiments’ is curated, designed and produced by Aalto University, School of Art, Design and Architecture.

Everyday Experiments examines the boundaries of design through twelve projects carried out in the real lives of Finnish citizens.

It invites visitors to think about everyday human – to – human and human – to – nature actions that we can take in pursuit of a sustainable and equal society.

Other Projects

Mars Project

Addressing the dramatic phenomenon of massive coral death due to multiple environmental pressures, new farming methods are being developed worldwide to grow different coral species until they can eventually be transplanted back onto reefs

The Mars project, modular artificial reef structure, which consists of a support structure for the growth of corals and offers an ideal habitat for the protection of the ecosystem coral and many other species.

MARS provides a rigid skeleton for transplanted corals to grow, while its complex geometry acts as a protective habitat for a number of other reef species such as fish and mollusks, and for the greater reef ecosystem.

SoFi by MIT CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory).

SoFi is a soft robotic fish that swims along real ones in coral reefs, non-intrusively documenting marine life.

Closeup exploration of underwater life requires new forms of interaction, using biomimetic creatures that are capable of agile swimming maneuvers, equipped with cameras, and supported by remote human operation.

This work presents the design, fabrication, control, and oceanic testing of a soft robotic fish that can swim in three dimensions to continuously record the aquatic life it is following or engaging.

Using a miniaturized acoustic communication module, a diver can direct the fish by sending commands such as speed, turning angle, and dynamic vertical diving.

Experimental results gathered from tests along coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean show that the robotic fish can successfully navigate around aquatic life at depths ranging from 0 to 18 meters.

Furthermore, our robotic fish exhibits a lifelike undulating tail motion enabled by a soft robotic actuator design that can potentially facilitate a more natural integration into the ocean environment

Algae Geographies, Algae Platform

Atelier Luma / Luma Arles with Studio Klarenbeek & Dros, III+1, buro BELÉN, Studio Tjeerd Veenhoven and HuisVeendam, Vera Scaccabarozzi, Inès Bressand and Is Fainas Cooperative, and other contributors. 2019

The project Algae Geographies has evolved into a transnational platform tapping onto the unexplored connections between local, raw biomaterials and the production methods associated with them.

The objects on display showcase the wide range of explorations enabled by this research platform: 3D-printed domestic objects made of microalgae and biopolymers; textiles dyed and printed with algae pigments; biolaminates with algae and starch based polymer; basketry which draws on cultural archives from the diverse locations where they were produced – Arles, Cairo, Istanbul, and Sardinia.

Reliquaries

Paola Bay and Armando Bruno’s “Reliquaries” features natural treasures that exist today, but displays them as precious artifacts from a forgotten time.

It’s a very simple and effective installation that shows seeds, animals, water, crustaceans and eggs.

Each item is fairly common today, which serves as a bleak reminder that they may not always be. A handful of soil, a drop of pure water, a starfish.

The glass case protects and presents them as they were reliquaries for a future time in which they’ll possibly be seen as rare, precious things.

Água Carioca – Urban Circulatory System in Brazil.

Eva Pfannes and Sylvain Hartenberg of Ooze Architects with Angelo Renna, Sacha Mollaret, Adolfo Estrada Vargas, Dirk Gonzalez Veugelers, Verena Balz, Florian de Visser, Mario Campanella. 2012-19,

A project for modular systems to treat and recycle wastewater in informal settlements in Rio de Janeiro.

The project promotes the development of a collective approach to handling water.

Resurrecting the Sublime

One of the most poetical projects on display, Resurrecting the Sublime undoubtedly deserves a mention as it has reproduced in a laboratory the scent of the flowers of an extinct tree.

Seed Journey

In “Seed Journey,” a 2016 project represented at the Triennial, the designer Amy Franceschini took seeds from northern Europe on a boat to their origins in the Middle East, meeting with farmers, bakers and millers along the way.

“Seed Journey,” represented with images, descriptions and glass jars containing grains, is another.

In 2016, the art collective Futurefarmers took seeds from northern Europe on a boat to their origins in the Middle East, meeting with farmers, bakers and millers along the way.

One such seed is a variety of Finnish rye not grown since the 1880s.

Nine seeds were found and planted; some grew, and the rye is now cultivated by small farmers in Norway in an ongoing urban farming project.

“ Faced with reduced biodiversity, Futurefarmers rediscovers and shares long-lost natural grains, which are often more nutritious and tastier than industrialized ones.

Bread baked with this rye tastes like maple syrup, even without sugar” ……….. Amy Franceschini

Sanctuary

The eerie silicone sculpture “Sanctuary,” by Australia’s Patricia Piccinini, represents two fictional human-bonobo hybrids blissfully embracing

Bonobos, humans’ closest primate relative, resolve conflict through intimate touching rather than violence.

Plastiglomerates

Kelly Jazvack collected a series of so-called plastiglomerates—conglomerates of sand and plastic that are formed on the Hawaiian islands.

These are essentially fossils of the Anthropocene (the current geological age) in which the impact of humans is evident

Think Evolution #1

Aki Inomata‘s “Think Evolution #1” is recreation of a shell that no longer exists in nature.

In its evolution, octopuses have abandoned their shells in order to be more agile and escape predators.

Today some species of octopus replace it with coconuts or shells of other creatures.

This Japanese designer has made a transparent ammonite in which an octopus can hide.

Mix Tape

The “Mix Tape” fabrics by Scott Bodenner, which are formed from old magnetic tapes—unused finds from the era of the Walkman.

Robotic Baby Feeder

Created for a generation that will probably have robots in their daily lives is work by Stephan Bogner, Philipp Schmitt and Jonas Voigt.

This mechanical arm can feed a baby and comes with a costume, in order to keep kids happy.

Acoustic Fur

Christien Meindertsma, 2018

Felt strips from textile leftovers which can be used as a acoustic insulation material

Mars Boot

Caskia / Growing a MarsBoot (2017) by Liz Ciokajlo, OurOwnsKIN and Maurizio Montalti, with Officina Corpuscoli.

The project explores our current material culture and how it could impact our future living on Mars.