sustainability, circularity, material futures

Cooking New Materials

Youyang Song
study project within the framework of Greenlab Project GreenDesign 7.0 – Material Cycles

Supervision: Prof. Dr. Zane Berzina, Prof. Susanne Schwarz Raacke,
Essi Johanna Glomb, Prof. Dr. Lucy Norris

Awards:
Materialica Student Award 2019
Re-FREAM Award 2019
winner of the ein&zwanzig design competition by the German Design Council, 2019

Mad Molecular Gourmet? No, I‘m just serious about material! 

On the Molecular Level is based on a self-developed process to process various organic waste substances into alternative, biodegradable textile materials. The seemingly useless food waste is thus given another life. It is similar to cooking in the molecular kitchen, except that here a new material is produced with food leftovers and other natural substances, instead of something edible using chemical-physical methods. 

Banana and orange peel or soy-milk pomace residues are combined with a natural binder as a matrix. The resulting composite material can be easily kept into its own material cycle after use by re-cooking. It is a 100% biodegradable zero waste natural product that also opens up novel possibilities for design.