Micelio, experimentando para una economía de los productos más sostenibles, circulares e inclusivos.
Micelio, experimentando para una economía de los productos más sostenibles, circulares e inclusivos. Nature provides many solutions through the materials it uses, which are also cheap and accessible. In the same way, a kingdom as vast as that of fungi, together with the vast world of waste, can provide us with what we need. Our territory provides an abundance of agro-industrial waste substrates that can be reincorporated into the cycle with a high value in the design of products for children's l
Local
Spain
Zaragoza City, Aragon region, Spain Country
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Aragon School of Design, LIA-Cesar laboratories from University of Zaragoza-Art and Technology Center Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Francisco Javier Last name of representative: Serón Gender: Male Nationality: Spain Function: Teacher and Project Coordinator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Avenida Maria Zambrano nº 3 Town: Zaragoza Postal code: 50018 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 976 23 75 45 E-mail:fseron@esda.es Website:http://esda.es
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New European Bauhaus or European Commission websites
The project was born during the 2019/2020 academic year during the pandemic months. The aim was to make product design students more aware of the concept of sustainability through working with materials that are more consistent with natural cycles.
To address the handling of biodegradable materials and implement experiences with students, the LIA-CESAR Biomaterials and Digital Fabrication laboratories were contacted. These laboratories are part of the University of Zaragoza, but are also housed in the city council's Etopia Art and Technology Centre. This involved three institutions. During this first year, the students designed kits to facilitate the feeding of children with motor disabilities, toys, balance bicycles for children from disadvantaged groups, using domestic waste such as tea, infusions, coffee grounds, recycled cotton, textiles and other agro-industrial waste (sawdust, straw, grain), etc. In this way, they were not only committed to a circular design and economy, but also to an inclusive proposal. Given the success of the project among our students, it has been extended throughout the following two years 21/22 and 22/23 (in process) focusing on balance bicycles. The idea is to make contact with groups to whom the product can be offered, while continuing to carry out mechanical tests on the material in order to validate its viability when applied to 1:1 prototypes. In each academic year, with a new group of students, processes, inter-institutional relations and objectives have been improved.
sustainability
product design
inclusive design
training of eco-designers
circular economy
The key objectives of the initiative are to train product designers to be more aware of the concept of sustainability based on real proposals. In turn, to encourage the use of local resources from waste generated by local industry, primarily biodegradable waste, but also from the service sector. To promote design initiatives based on the use of such materials that are more inclusive and that serve disadvantaged groups in the local area. Visualise the possibilities of new materials such as mycelium, bioplastics or bacterial cellulose that are more coherent with natural and vital cycles.
Aragon is a region where agribusiness has a strong presence. This sector generates very valuable waste that can be reintegrated as initiatives in a circular economy that also allows the implementation of designs that are more coherent with current problems. The issue of mobility, if we look at one of the designs, is another of the driving forces behind the development of the region and the city, but at the same time we live in a city with strong social inequalities in which not all groups have access to a bicycle, or in our case to what are learning bikes for children. On the other hand, these are objects that have a very short useful life and although exchange platforms are helping to prevent these objects from becoming waste, they continue to be designed with materials such as plastic polymers that are very harmful. In this way, our commitment can have a strong local imprint by using our own resources.
Given that the initial aim of the project is to have an impact on the awareness of new designers in relation to the problem of sustainability, the project itself emphasises the aesthetic aspects as the main dimension of the proposal, as well as the experience in which they become involved, not only with the material, generating emotional links, but also, through the development of objects and products, providing cultural and social benefits. In turn, through the proposals themselves and the exhibition of the products designed so far in the first two phases, it is intended to have a positive impact on citizens and the public that attends many of the exhibitions and activities of Etopia, and facilitate the understanding of how new materials from waste in a circular economy perspective, can have a positive impact. The key objectives are born out of the project itself, designers must take into account social issues, providing solutions that have a positive impact and also maintain optimal experiential and aesthetic levels for people's experience. In our context there are complementary initiatives from the industrial point of view, but it is still necessary for design to be involved and through this academic initiative, with different partners, we can make design present.
The project is based on a key objective: autonomy and empowerment to design new materials that are more coherent with natural cycles and that allow us to design in accordance with new social models in line with the SGD. At the same time, the design proposals in which students have been more involved so far, would allow access to the designed objects to numerous social strata. In turn, this initiative is not only useful to raise awareness among our students, but also allows multiple people to have access to reflect on the concepts of sustainable materiality through the objects themselves. By the nature of the partners associated with the project, there is also a DIY do-it-yourself or DIWO do-it-with-others approach, fostering new models of governance in access to materials through do-it-yourself and co-participation, again generating new systems of material society. The context is appropriate, as there is experience in relation to this type of initiative that involves both horizontally and vertically different social groups with different types of expertise. However, the social groups still need to be addressed, as it is being designed on a scale that requires a new phase to be reached.
At present, the phases of the project have evolved from a knowledge of the mycelium, the resources, the interaction between partners and the possibilities provided by a design guided by a specific material and its application to social initiatives, but without having yet taken the step of making contact with the target groups, beyond very specific initiatives. In any case, it is hoped that during the current academic year, objects will have been designed that can be presented to society and contact will be made with associations and groups for whom the products are intended, above all those groups that do not have access to these products, but associations that are interested in products designed from a completely new material perspective. In this way, the intention is to have an impact firstly on the academic community, and subsequently on the local community in which the project is inserted through the art and technology centre, as well as other educational communities that carry out activities in the university's LIA-CESAR laboratories.
The project basically involves three agents or institutions. In the case of the Escuela Superior de Diseño de Aragón, it coordinates the initiative, given that the students are the initial agents on whom the project has an impact, but who in turn develop the design proposals and research and reflect from a combined action between the academic, the formal, the non-formal and the experimental. In second place we find the LIA-CESAR Laboratories of the University of Zaragoza. They are the main agents both in terms of human resources, as they provide the experience of the coordinators of the digital fabrication and biomaterials laboratories, as well as the material resources so that the proposal can evolve. In any case, we are both in a constant learning process to improve the processes and analyse the possible impact of this proposal beyond the scope of action. Finally, the city council, through the Centro de Arte y Tecnología-Etopia and the Coordinadora, provides all the management and planning aspects as well as those related to the cultural dimension of the proposal.
The work has been based on design as a field of knowledge that allows transversal relationships between different disciplines. In this case, and due to the nature of the main material used in the development of the projects, the knowledge that comes from biology and biochemistry in its relations with engineering or materials design has a strong impact. On the other hand, and in order to implement some of the stages leading to the prototyping of objects, it has been necessary to rely on process engineering/industrial engineering and design engineering. Finally, although not formally part of the project, some proposals have involved occupational therapists for the development of applied prototypes.
In the case of the representatives of the different disciplines, they have collaborated intimately in the design of the action plan and in many cases co-participating and contributing each of the experts' knowledge for a common purpose.
For example, it was necessary to draw on the knowledge of the head of the biomaterials laboratory, an expert in biochemistry and in the design and testing of biological materials, to provide the design perspective, while the head of the digital fabrication laboratory provided us with his knowledge of the processes that allowed the material to be grown into the appropriate artefacts. Likewise, in the aforementioned case of collaborators in the field of occupational therapy, it was necessary to make them understand design aspects while providing us with contact with the work and use of people with this motor disability.
While it is true that there are more and more actions in different geographical contexts that take mycelium as a material from which to plan different actions, in our case the innovation comes from how we use the material to intervene in aspects of awareness of designers in their relationship with the field of sustainability and that in turn, these relationships extend to other institutional areas, which at the same time involve multiple relationships with citizens. In particular these relations are established from the different partners involved in the project as they are the laboratories LIA-CESAR that on having depended on an institution as it is the university of zaragoza, but in turn to have his physical head office in a centre of the town hall of the city, allow to amplify the tour of the project towards multiple sectors, educational, social and even managerial. Another of the important aspects is the empowerment in the search of applications that can have an impact of social character. It is not only of interest to design from a material according to MDD methodologies, but also to broaden the points of view of application, as in many cases applications are proposed that are more related to the experimental novelty of the material and in other cases they are being inserted into industrial ecosystems as a substitute for plastics, but without taking into account the social dimension. This is where the strength of the project lies, as well as generating an institutional or inter-institutional culture. In turn, these design methodologies based on materials also have an impact as a novelty by valuing material culture and its implications before the problems or problems of human beings and subsequently not attending to the materials that are applied.
From a methodological perspective, the project, the activities and experiences that comprise it in its work with design students are easily transferable to other academic contexts. They involve approaching the knowledge of a material, such as mycelium, from its multiple possibilities but approaching it in a different way to conventional learning, knowledge and application of materials. In this way, all that is required are the appropriate resources in terms of technology and processes, as well as specialised human resources, which in many contexts are present, laboratories, other academic institutions or even companies in the environment in which the project takes place.
On the other hand, the search for applications of the knowledge acquired in terms of a material that is more coherent with current environmental problems opens up multiple fields of design study from which it is possible to investigate the transfer of knowledge.
By way of example, at the moment, based on the work carried out, and from an initial phase in the sharing of knowledge, we are already in contact with design institutions in neighbouring countries to design mycelium supports which, based on the use of conductive materials, will allow applications in the graphic field.
Lastly, there is a long way to go in the field of social innovation-social inclusion by making contact with groups that find it difficult to access certain products due to their cost. This economic impact could be reduced by designing from the application of mycelium, when in many cases these are single-use or reduced-use products.
The initiative starts from an academic context. From the analysis of how our students conceptualise sustainability and apply it to design projects based on their learning, in contrast to their actions as citizens, it was noted that in many cases, when they reached the end of their studies, their proposals were inconsistent with the concept itself. One of the conclusions reached is that such inconsistency stems from treating the concept as something theoretical. Thus, a project has been initiated in which, with the collaboration of the different institutions, the aim is to acquire knowledge of a material such as mycelium, from its manipulation and experimentation, with the objective of relating the framework of sustainable action with the nature of the material itself, as well as with its design actions.
From a process of reflexive research-action, the students are assuming a greater awareness in the different actions, starting from a design methodology guided by the material (MDD, Parisi) but collaborative and co-participated by different agents and partners.
Thus, the project addresses a design problem, through research, but also a problem of ethical training of future designers.
After each phase or academic year, the results are re-analysed. In the last one, they seem to point out that the students not only become more aware of the material, but also gain in autonomy and in more inclusive, social and eco-sustainable proposals.
The greatest challenge is linked to the concept of sustainability, and specifically to the impact of materials on local ecosystems from the decisions we make, and to enable much more conscious, coherent and ethical processes with current problems, from the actions of future professionals in the field of design, which, as Papanek (2004) has already pointed out, are in many cases 80% of the bad decisions made in production systems.
In turn, and with regard to promoting experimental knowledge of a material such as mycelium, the local environment is studied in order to analyse industrial waste (agri-food, agro-forestry, paper) as a basis for growth from a circular economy perspective.
This analysis that leads to being able to configure "new materials" also has a preliminary study of the possible fields of action in the design of objects or artefacts that serve society, and from the coherence that the umbrella of sustainability implies, enable improvements from innovation and social inclusion in needs that are covered with conventional materials, In response to the mycelium's configuration, it would allow these communities to participate, even in the configuration of their own biodegradable materials-objects, especially for objects of reduced use both in time and in their application.
At present, during the 2022/2023 academic year, the project is being carried out for the third year, in which some of the actions have been modified, as well as the proposal to study the results previously analysed during the two previous years 2020/2021 and 2021/2022.
Above all, it is a question of working with the problem of scaling up some of the products to enable us to analyse their real viability in the design of a specific product aimed at a broad social group.
The first course or phase of the project was taken as a pilot test that allowed us to contrast our hypotheses, but also to design at a working scale of 1:4 in different proposals for artefacts that the students aimed at disadvantaged groups, following a study of their possible needs.
After analysing the results with the participating agents and reaching the conclusion that there was a positive impact of the initiative, that is, through the use of a natural material the students not only improved their knowledge of material-sustainability relations, but also broadened the field of action of their proposals to those of a social nature, this was taken as the starting point for phase two or the second academic year.
During this phase 2021/2022 it was proposed to carry out an exhibition of the objects designed to evaluate their possible social impact, as well as focusing on designing one of the objects on a 1:2 scale, so that the object would allow us to carry out more specific tests, as well as comparisons between the students' proposals, in this case based on the study of a learning bike for children and the four model-prototypes developed.
Once the feasibility has been checked, this year, as mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, the next step is to develop some of the parts on a 1:1 scale, test them and approve or reject their design. The challenge for the near future is twofold. Optimising the waste collection processes.
Within the European framework of sustainability competences, the project develops many of the 12 competences corresponding to the 4 areas. In particular, it is a project whose main objective is that students incorporate sustainability values in all their proposals, and above all in their final projects, which summarise their training very well. The aim is for them to value sustainability as a practical concept, but also as an unavoidable one at this time, and for their proposals, as they have done so far, to promote equity and eco-design in coherence with nature from the local environment in which they carry out their actions, hence the analysis of local resources and waste that allow new growth substrates for mycelium to be designed.
From a conceptual point of view, the project also has a strong reflective component with the aim of making them capable of designing from more critical holistic frameworks of action and, above all, of becoming aware of the problems and solutions that they are capable of offering as designers to current and future problems.
Finally, as Papanek pointed out in the 1970s, and due to the synergies established in the project with different agents, universities, local authorities and the city council, the aim is to make them aware of their role as agents of change, influencing political agendas as far as possible through specific projects such as this one, which have a social impact above all through both collective and individual actions, given that it is a co-participatory and collaborative project.
