The MoA Design Research Studio on »Growth« was a continuation of the »Scaling Nature« series introduced in Summer 2019. In this context, the core idea of the studio was to investigate matter as an active agent in the design process. This means that it has its own innate capacity of formation and performance, that is being designed from the bottom up. Scaling nature can be understood as the process of extracting principles from naturally occurring systems and taking them as inspiration for specific applications – during this process scaling operations necessarily are one key aspect of this translation. The results of the MoA Design Research Studio on »Growth« were on internal display at the weißensee school of art and design berlin from September 22nd to October 14th, 2020. more

Experimental Yarn was planned as an interdisciplinary exchange on the idea of fibers and yarn: How are fibers and yarns being formed and how do they perform inside a material system. By discussing and comparing approaches from specific disciplines - Textile Technology, Biomaterials and Design - we aimed to transgress the disciplinary boundaries and explore new fields for research and application.  more

The MoA Design Research Studio »Scaling Fiber: Experimental Yarn« explored the upscaling of fiber into yarns as structural elements for the architectural scale and context. It was carried out as a transdisciplinary exchange between architecture, textile technology, materials science and cultural studies aiming at new concepts for sustainable design technologies. more

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.  more

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

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. more

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. more

The book provides new perspectives from leading researchers accentuating and examining the central role of the built environment in conceiving and implementing multifaceted solutions for the complex challenges of our understanding of planetary resources and circularity, revealing critical potentials for architecture and design to contribute in more informed and long-term ways to the urgent transition of our society. Bastian Beyer et. al. contributed with the article »Towards a Bacterially-Induced Textile Architecture« and Daniel Suárez and Natalija Miodragović an article on »Plektonik— Active Yarns for Adaptive Loop-Based Material Systems«. more

»Matters of Activity« und das Experimentallabor für Wissenschaftskommunikation »CollActive Materials« starteten im März eine neue Veranstaltungsreihe im Futurium Lab. Unter dem Titel »Materialzukünfte besuchen« fanden über vier Monate vier Workshops statt, die die Forschung des Clusters mit der Zivilgesellschaft zusammenbrachten und in denen gemeinsam über Materialzukünfte spekuliert wurde. Begleitet wurden die Veranstaltungen von einer temporären Ausstellung im Futurium Lab. more