
Topo Lock, Boyoung Chung, weissensee school of art and design
Final Review and Presentation of MoA Design Research Studio
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, that will be presented and on display starting February 11th.

Hyomandibula - Tesserae shapes and their growth. Image: Mason Dean
Team Led by MoA Researchers Mason Dean and Peter Fratzl Present New Findings
The skeletons of sharks and rays, consisting of cartilage and armored with a covering of mineralized tiles (tesserae), pose a mathematical challenge: How can continuous coverage be maintained as the skeleton grows? New insights into the geometric rules governing the development of stingray skeletal patterns by a research team including MoA members Peter Fratzl, Mason Dean, Binru Yang, and Jana Cicierska-Holmes, can be read in an article published in last December's issue of »Advanced Science«. The study used microCT and custom visual data analyses of growing skate skeletons to systematically examine the tessellation patterns and morphology of the many thousands of interacting tesserae that cover the hyomandibula, a skeletal element critical for feeding.

Felix Rasehorn gives a MoA Talk at weißensee school of art and design
research for clients like Adidas, SPACE10 and IKEA.
The lecture is part of MoA Design Research Studio, Scaling Nature »Tiles and Tissues« at the Material and Textile Design Department, headed by Cluster member Prof. Christiane Sauer. more

Heidi Jalkh Presents her Research in Argentinian TV
La Liga della Ciencia Channel on YouTube.
In the interview that was aired on a National television show about Science Communication in November, MoA member Heidi Jalkh presented her research on bio-inspired materials and reports on her work at »Matters of Activity« at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, which began with her participation in the »Open Design« program. The full interview can be seen on the 
Round Table »Tesselated Material Systems«. Design: studioeins, adapted by Matters of Activity
On December 8 at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The Round Table »Tessellated Material Systems«« continued the new 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. This Thursday, Karola Dierichs, Lennart Eigen, John Nyakatura and Felix Rasehorn discussed their work with Jörg Petruschat and Alwin Cubasch.

Poster Material Legacies. Image: Dietrich Polenz and the Experimental Surgery Lab, 2020
Exhibition at Kunstgewerbemuseum
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

Collection Overview - Tessellation Archive. Copyright: Felix Rasehorn
An Online Collection of Tiled Tissues and Architectures from Across the Natural World
Tessellations are structural motifs made up of repeating tiles, found in many forms and serving a variety of functions in nature. Perhaps partly inspired by natural examples, tessellations have also been a part of human history in art, design and culture, commonly in the form of mosaics, and more recently in the realm of bio-inspired design and engineering. This collection showcases the diversity of this motif, exploring commonalities in structure and function across environments and taxa, to inspire biological and biomaterials research, but also bioinspired design and architecture. Follow the link to explore the classification scheme and compare the similarities and differences between the tessellations.

Designing Matter 2. Copyright: Clara Poeverlein / weißensee school of art and design berlin
Final Review of the MoA Design Research Studio
On Tuesday, February 15th 2022, 10 a.m.–5.30 p.m., the contributors of the MoA Design Research Studio »Designing Matter 2« presented their results during a one-day final online review. »Designing Matter 2«, supervised by MoA members Karola Dierichs, Felix Rasehorn, Mareike Stoll, Mason Dean, Michaela Eder, Charlett Wenig, Binru Yang and John Nyakatura, investigated tessellated surfaces as material systems for textile architecture and product design.

Copyright: Leila Wallisser / weißensee school of art and design berlin
From Tile to Tesselation
The MoA Design Research Studio »Designing Matter 2« investigated tessellated surfaces as material systems for textile architecture and product design. A tessellated surface is composed of individual units—tiles—which are connected by a joining material—such as tissue. Designing the materiality and the geometry of these individual units and their joints allows to calibrate the functionality of the overall tessellation.

Magic Circle Symposium weissensee school of art and design berlin, »Erosive Modeling«. Copyright: Kristin Dolz.
Symposium for Interdisciplinary Exchange on 25 February 2021
In the production of knowledge, design processes are fundamental, although the experimental settings in the sciences, in the arts, in design differ in assumptions, execution and conclusions. But the richness of the material, its property of being able to change itself, its active effect on the surrounding space as well as its reactive shaping to forces and energies allow other domains of knowledge immediate points of contact and give them stimuli for their own or joint knowledge production. The symposium »Magic Circle« was organized by the »Forschungskreis« of the weißensee school of art and design berlin (khb) in cooperation with »Matters of Activity«, under the direction of Prof. Dr. Jörg Petruschat with contributions from various Cluster members.