Scaling Nature (4) – Tiles and Tissues

Tiles and tissues are elements of tessellated systems found in nature, serving as strategies to enable movement, protection, growth, or adaptation in living beings. This concept appears across all scales and various species of plants, animals, and even in geological formations.

Tessellations and tiles also shape our built environment. Such principles allow for specific assembly and repair while providing stability or flexibility according to need. From exploring natural and geometrical strategies, the students developed concepts of material systems for a spatial context.

Initial workshops on form-function relationships in nature, in architecture and in geometry laid the theoretical base for the designs. Lectures by natural scientists and a visit to the Max-Planck-Institute of Colloid and Interfaces, Department of Biomaterials, gave insights into nature’s strategies on how form enables function. Architectural applications of tiling, geometrical background of tessellations and the principle of topological interlocking were introduced through lectures.

A hands-on rapid prototyping workshop, together with an introduction to robotic programming, allowed for material experimentation and laid out the start for the individual student projects.

The resulting design concepts range from optic screens, body armature, inflatable skin to furniture re-use, climatic devices and many more. Bioinspiration as a strategy opened up new perspectives for the students’ design concepts and led to outstanding combinations of geometry and functionality with highly individual aesthetic approaches.

Program

Tuesday
11 February 2025

10.15am– 5.30pm Final Presentation
5.30pm– 7.00pm Exhibition Opening

The exhibition will be on display in the Entrance Foyer from February 12th–19th from 9am– 7pm.

A Collaboration by

Weissensee School of Art and Design Berlin, Department of Textile and Material Design
Max-Planck-Institute of Colloid and Interfaces, Department of Biomaterials MPIKG, Potsdam
Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity. Image Space Material, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Concept and Supervision by

Prof. Christiane Sauer, Nayeli Vega Vargas, Jörg Hugo, Jessica Zmijan, Yolanda Leask
Weissensee School of Art and Design Berlin

Dr. Lorenzo Guiducci
TU Dresden

Prof. Dr. Yuri Estrin
Monash University, University of Western Australia

Dr. Shahrouz Amini, Dr. Binru Yang, Prof. Dr. Dr. Peter Fratzl,
Max-Planck-Institute of Colloid and Interfaces, Department of Biomaterials MPIKG, Potsdam

Felix Rasehorn
WINT Design Lab, Berlin

Works by

Boyoung Chung, Daniela Monedero, Dasol Jeong, Diana Salgado, Ida Haeun Lee, Jihae Lee, Larissa Schieberl, Maja Füspök, Marieke Niemann, Marina Luding, Merle Marx, Rosalie Ponn, Valentin Titze, Wionna Kallaba, Xiaotong Fu, Yi Jin