GROWING FACADE

 

The Growing Facade represents a digitally fabricated, regenerative building component. Each panel (60x60cm) forms a unique relief composed of printed and cultivated elements made from mycelium, the root system of fungi combined with wood and/or seaweed fibers and sawdust.​

 

These fully biobased and regenerative panels are not manufactured in the traditional sense but grown through 3D printing and cultivation. The first wall is acquired by Heijmans, and on view at their headquarters' innovation lab Heijmans Hive. A second set is on view at the Innovation Pavilion at the Marineterrein in Amsterdam. The Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA), in collaboration with Sensorlab, is monitoring the panels in various ways, allowing our team to explore symbiotic growth processes as both a design method and an application for the built environment.  

At the heart of Growing Facades lies a deeper conceptual exploration: an AI-driven interpretation of our microbiotic world, where both terrestrial and aquatic microorganisms - such as mycelium and algae - are envisioned as coexisting within emergent swamp and underwater ecologies. Through this speculative lens, the project imagines symbiotic landscapes, not only among biological species but also between humans, their environments, and intelligent machines. This vision reflects our ongoing commitment to harmonising natural and technological systems, where design, robotics, and ecology collaborate toward a regenerative future, blurring the lines between cultivation and construction, art and architecture. 

The research for the panels is funded by the Municipality of Amsterdam in collaboration with Hogeschool van Amsterdam, and a first total wall construction is acquired by company Heijmans. 

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VENNOLA GLASSES

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Designer duo Klarenbeek and Dros based the design of these alge printed glasses on the original iittala Kaveri Glassware by Jorma Vennola 1979 as part of the 'Seaweed Cycle for The Breakdown Economy' at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. The glassed were featured in our Milano 'The Last Supper, From a Different Perspective' installation during Milano Design Week.

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Studio Klarenbeek & Dros developed seaweed based biopolymers based on lab grown algae, that enable a remediating and fully circular local production chain, featured in the online (Covid lockdown) exhibition by Boijmans van Beuningen: 'The Breakdown Economy', 'De Afbreekeconomie'. 
 

The studio has established the 'Seaweed Circle", a local production chain starting with the propagation and cultivation of seaweed embryos and ending with the production of Seaweed based biopolymers, 'Weedware'. Resulting in CO2-binding and biocompatible materials that restore ecology, stimulate biodiversity and break with the current destructive cycle of production. 

This material replaces fossil-derived plastics, while at the same time binding carbon, reducing the footprint below zero: 'Algae grow by absorbing carbon and producing complex starches, natural binders, besides a variety of other valuable components, including pigments. These can be used for the creation of a new generation bioplastics and colors. The waste product is oxygen, clean air, at a scale exceeding the output of trees: algae, as the pioneers of evolution, provide 60% of the oxygen production on earth. 

In the exhibition for Boijmans van Beuningen, 'The Breakdown Economy' our newest project Seaweed Cycle presents a world without plastic, placed centrally in the exhibition. Their developed material and startup is called Wierwaar (Weedware) at which they introduce a local cultivated and degradable alternative to plastic. 

The Breakdown Economy was an exhibition about making and destroying things. It's not about economic growth and efficient production, but about the limitations of this model. How do we destroy everything that we, as humans, have made? In this discussion you can assume a radical position and lump everything together or adopt a more pragmatic attitude whereby a breakdown economy is in balance with nature. What connects all these ideas is not just that things can be done differently, but that they must be done differently.  

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