Arts
Advancements in biomaterials and biodesign suggest that growing materials may offer superior functionality and sustainability, compared to current textile and material manufacturing methods. Will the next generation of sustainable materials for fashion and product design be grown? Will designers need to adopt scientific approaches in order to grow these materials? How could 'biomaterials' effect sustainability efforts?What are the current challenges and barriers to growing such materials?Panellists:Jen Keane, Materials DesignerFollowing a design career at Adidas, Jen recently grew a trainer using bacteria during her MA Material Futures degree at Central Saint Martins. Jen is a designer and creative researcher working in between the disciplines of design and science, technology and craft. Inspired by notions of sustainability and fascinated with new digital and biological tools, she is exploring how these technologies could be employed to design a new generation of hybrid materials, and perhaps change our approach to making altogether.Professor Carole Collet, Professor in Design for Sustainable Futures, Director Design & Living Systems LabCarole Collet is Professor in Design for Sustainable Futures at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London where she has been appointed CSM-LVMH Director of Sustainable Innovation in 2017. In this role, Collet set up Maison/0, an incubator of sustainable intelligence designed to provoke creative practices and challenge our collective futures. Collet is also Director of the Design & Living Systems Lab, a research lab that explores the interface of biological sciences and design to propose new sustainable models of biofabrication.Carole Collet has dedicated her career to developing a new sustainable vision for design, and founded the Masters of Textile Futures at Central Saint Martins in 2000. Her research focuses on exploring the intersection of biology and design to explore innovative and disruptive sustainable design propositions. She curated the first international exhibition that explores biodesign via the lens of sustainability in 2013 (‘Alive, New Design Frontiers’).Tom Meany, CEO at Cell-Free Technology, Director at Open CellCell-Free Technology develop rapid prototyping tools for designing and validating novel proteins. Their technology allows users to test a DNA circuit in as little as 30 minutes without any laboratory infrastructure. This completely revolutionises how one can conduct experiments. Instead of testing tens of recombinant DNA samples in cell culture over the course of a few days, you can now trial thousands of variants in a few hours.OpenCell.bio offers affordable lab space to early stage companies. It is spread across 45 shipping containers in Shepherd's Bush London and has labs, workshops and offices.Chair:Brooke Roberts-Islam, Founder, Techstyler; Co-Director, BRIABrooke is a digital knitwear designer who has over a decade of experience as a diagnostic radiographer in the NHS. She is Co-director of the Brooke Roberts Innovation Agency (BRIA) who create sustainable and technical material collaborations, products and installations with brands from both the fashion and technology sectors, directly combining her knowledge of the latest developments in the fashion-technology sector with her cross-discipline approach to developing new materials.