Syntopia. Copyright: Jihae Lee, weißensee school of art and design berlin
Final Review of MoA Design Research Studio
We hereby cordially invite you to the final review of the MoA Design Research Studio »Syntopia—Harvesting the Forest«, which will take place on Tuesday, July 18th, in Room 2.03 at weißensee school of art and design berlin. The studio led by Cluster Professor Karola Dierichs, investigated how materials collected in the forest can be formed into architectural structures. Such materials can for example be branches, leaves, moss, bark, grass, or even earth.
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Bark by Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten and Willow Plektonik by »Structural Textile Project« of Natalija Miodragović, Nelli Singer and Daniel Suárez. Copyright: Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten
Conversation on Local Biomaterials as Design Innovators between Natalija Miodragović, Dr. Michaela Eder and Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten
Moderated by Dr. Manuel Rivera (RIFS) the Cluster Members Natalija Miodragović, Dr. Michaela Eder and Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten discuss bark, willow and wool in the panel »Conversation on Local Biomaterials as Design Innovators« during the exhibition »Examples to Follow!« on July 13th, 7.30 pm.
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Copyright: Mina Mahouti
New Cluster Event Series Critically Explores Material Sustainability Concepts
Transforming linear economies into resource, energy, and more-than-human friendly processes means to bridge different areas of expertise. Ongoing discussions in different Cluster research groups such as MFF, Filtering, Weaving etc. have shown the importance of involving the perspectives of various actors, practitioners and experts into further research processes. Promising solutions and insights for a new material economy and culture are facing similar problems when it comes to transfer them from laboratory to the market. (Material) engineers, designers and activists face numerous challenges in expanding their activities, be they technological, political, economic or social. Kicking-off in June 2023, a new series of events will connect members of the Cluster interested in critically exploring material sustainability concepts with different practitioners and stakeholders from outside the Academy, and foster knowledge exchange in both directions.
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»The Bark Project«, Charlett Wenig. Copyright: Patrick Walter, MPIKG
Charlett Wenig Speaks at Interdisciplinary Conference
Wastework is an international, interdisciplinary 3-day conference on the materiality, spatiality, and processing of waste in the early modern workshop. It proposes to examine acts of disposal, displacement, removal, and abeyance – in short, the getting rid of unwanted things – and the consequences these carry for the study of early modern material culture. Cluster researcher Charlett Wenig is on the panel »Paradoxes of Matter«, on March 17th at 2:00 pm.
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Schematic representation of the pressing process, right: ready pressed bark panels. Copyright: cc-by 4.0 PLOS ONE
Adhesive-free Bark Panels
Charlett Wenig and her interdisciplinary team of researchers from »Matters of Activity« and the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (MPICI) has investigated how the natural properties of native tree bark can be used to create a standardized product for long-term use without the addition of adhesives. In doing so, they have created bark panels by peeling and drying via hot pressing, which could be used in interior design or furniture and packaging, for example, through industrial production.
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Round Table »Rinde: Gestaltung mit Resten«. Design: studioeins, adapted by Matters of Activity
On January 26 at Kunstgewerbemuseum
We cordially invite you to the Round Table »Rinde: Gestaltung mit Resten« which continues the format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting projects and the involved researchers and artists in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On January 26th designer and Cluster Member Charlett Wenig will discuss her work with Ferréol Berendt (HNE Eberswalde) and Nikolaus Stolle (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt). Moderated by cultural theorist and Cluster Member Robert Stock.
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Poster Material Legacies. Image: Dietrich Polenz and the Experimental Surgery Lab, 2020
Exhibition at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin explored contingencies and ruptures between traditional crafts and the most recent developments at the crossroads of material research, design, engineering, and architecture. It brought together artifacts from the museum’s collection with work-in-progress installations by designers and researchers from the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« in order to initiate a dialogue about the historical, contemporary, and future conditions under which materiality unfolds.
By engaging with a series of different materials and techniques the exhibition encompassed both the problematization of unsustainable pasts and presents as well as the imagination of speculative material futures. Taking materiality as a starting point, each of the exhibits investigated its sociocultural, economic, and political context in order to disentangle the multiple interrelations that arise from and with materials. more
By engaging with a series of different materials and techniques the exhibition encompassed both the problematization of unsustainable pasts and presents as well as the imagination of speculative material futures. Taking materiality as a starting point, each of the exhibits investigated its sociocultural, economic, and political context in order to disentangle the multiple interrelations that arise from and with materials. more
Poster PhD presentations 2022. Layout: Ada Favaron
Doctoral Presentations at the MoA Retreat 2022
The 2022 presentation of the Doctoral Program »Matters of Activity« at the MoA Retreat in September at Landgut Stober was both a review and an outlook of the doctoral research conducted at the Cluster between 2020 and 2022. Under the title »Scaling Matters: From the Lab to the Field, «Pre-Doctoral Researchers at varying stages of their research — from the very beginning to the final phase of their theses — presented their heterogeneous work whilst continuing to negotiate common themes, methods, questions and tools. The format combined talks and an exhibition and invited MoA Members to engage individually with the presentation and a selection of their research objects.
Thanks to everyone involved for making possible this all-around successful event. Enjoy some visual impressions of the exhibition, as well as the talks and have a look at the booklet.
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Advanced Materials Design Based on Waste Wood and Bark
New Paper by Members of »Weaving« published in »Philosophical Transactions A«
Cluster members Charlett Wenig, Friedrich J. Reppe, Karin Krauthausen, Peter Fratzl and Michaela Eder together with colleagues published a paper in the journal »Philosophical Transactions A« by »The Royal Society«. Trees belong to the largest living organisms on Earth and plants in general are one of our main renewable resources. Wood as a material has been used since the beginning of humankind. Today, forestry still provides raw materials for a variety of applications, for example in the building industry, in paper manufacturing and for various wood products.
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»The Bark Project«, Charlett Wenig. Copyright: Patrick Walter, MPIKG
Members Charlett Wenig and Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten Were Awarded 2nd Place at Idea Competition of »Die Junge Akademie« for »The Bark Project«
The MoA research group »Adaptive Fibrous Materials« is interested in interactions between biological material and its environment. The fact that plants are sessile make them particularly interesting regarding their adaptability and optimization strategies – there is no way for them to escape. Remodeling processes, such as those found in the animal kingdom, are absent and adaptation takes place by growth. The junior research group is jointly funded by »Matters of Activity« and the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Surfaces (MPIKG).
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Left: The Bark Sphere, Charlett Wenig with Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten I MPI-CI and Alexander Magerl, 2021
Middle: The Bark Project Flexibilized, Charlett Wenig with Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten I MPI-CI and Patrick Walter
Right: Charles Eisen’s allegorical engraving of the first hut (= Vitruvian hut). Frontispiece in: Marc Antoine Laugier, Essai sur l’architecture, Paris: Chez Duchesne […], 2. edition, 1755. ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Rar 1254, https://doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-128 / Public Domain Mark
»Syntopic Architectures« engages in structures for habitation, sourced from and embedded in the material cycles of a specific environment. The term ›syntopic‹ (noun: syntopy) has been coined by Luis Rene Rivas in 1964 and denotes the inhabitation of the same »macrohabitat« by »two or more related species«. It is a composition of the Greek words ›syn‹ meaning together and topos meaning place. To develop Syntopic Architectures thus means to create inhabitable structures with the place where they are built in.
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