the brands of 2023

In 2023, Material Matters will showcase a curated mix of exhibitors to celebrate the importance of materials and their ability to shape our lives. The selection included global brands, makers, designers, manufacturers, and artists working in materials that ranged from recycled aluminium, clay, wood and glass to orange peel, roots and sugar.


crafting plastics! studio

  • ROOM 7


Crafting plastics! studio is an award-winning Bratislava-based design research studio, founded by Vlasta Kubušová and Miroslav Král. The studio's practice focuses on cross-disciplinary research, development, and implementation of new generations of better ecological biocomposites into our current and future day-to-day lives.

DumoLab Research at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design, led by Dr. Laia Mogas-Soldevila, pioneers material-driven design teaching and researches biomaterials in architecture to nurture both humans and the planet.
https://www.design.upenn.edu/dumolab, @dumolab

Crafting plastics! studio and DumoLab Research present Sensbiom 2.1, an environmentally-active installation that proposes indoor surfaces able to sense and react to their surroundings, envisioning a future where the makeup of everyday products is non-toxic and living-like.

Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) can neither be seen nor felt and yet quickly damage skin and eyes. While the highest UVR readings are outdoors and closer to the equator, regular clear glass in buildings like the Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf allows most UV rays to pass through. Even if today’s ozone depletion has been reduced, climate change caused by fossil fuel burning has a major impact on the global UVR increase, causing DNA damage to all living things.

In SENSBIOM 2.1, a curtain of sensing lattices able to fold and twist, becomes passive detectors. Made from Nuatan bioplastic structure and environmentally-responsive biomaterial skin, the lattices self stain in accordance to UVR exposure, signalling real-time changes in indoor solar radiation to make visitors aware of invisible threats harming 3 million people’s eyes and skin every year.

Crafting plastics! studio and DumoLab Research ask: What is in the air we inhabit? Can matter signal what humans cannot see? What can it do for our health in a time of accelerating climate change? Can bio-composites help us heal our relationship with nature?

The SENSBIOM project embodies ongoing research at crafting plastics! studio and DumoLab Research as a multidisciplinary effort to explore biochemically augmented and environmentally active biomaterials mapping new relationships between humans and the ever-changing environment.

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