Dr Ziyu Zhou - Materials Truth

Materials Truth (written in 17th August)

In my doctoral thesis in 2022, I emphasized that incorporating material education into design can foster a deeper understanding of sustainable transformation and enhance relevant design skills, including circular design, green design, ecological design, and more. Since the year 2023, I'm excited to have the opportunity to advance this approach to design education at HfG Offenbach. In collaboration with the Sustainability Office in HfG Offenbach, I've developed an elective course for all the students of Art and Design: Materials & Sustainability. The teaching and learning approach of this course aligns with my Meaning-driven Material Education Pedagogical Framework. Building upon this foundation, the course further refines the approach to illustrate how materials can actively contribute to discussions and design activities about sustainability.

At present, I characterized this method of exploration as "investigating for the truth about materials." My intention is not to provide this initivitative with a catchy title, but rather to emphasize that materials are more than what meets the eye; instead, they encapsulate numerous narratives, where it from, how it circled, which kind of opportunities can be involved, with the essence of sustainability woven into these narratives. Consequently, our investigation of materials holds enormous significance. It not only allows us to acquire deeper sustainable insights, but also foster critical thinking.

About the course Materials & Sustainability

Materials are crucial for sustainability because they play a significant role in the production and use of goods and services, and they are the key to addressing some key environmental issues such as energy transition. Sustainable materials are materials that have been responsibly sourced, manufactured, and used in a way that minimises their environmental impact, and maximises their social and economic benefits. The choice of materials can affect the carbon footprint, energy efficiency, and waste generation throughout the product life cycle.

The "Materials & Sustainability" course is open to both design and art students at Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach (HfG Offenbach). It took place during the second semester of the 2023 academic year. This course is a collaborative initiative between the Büro für Nachhaltigkeit and the Institute für Materialdesign IMD at HfG Offenbach. This course is for students to explore the issues of sustainable materials by sharing knowledge and helping students understand the current state of sustainable materials development, focusing on related topics such as emerging materials, material resources, the circular economy, product life cycle and urban mining.

The course is structured into four parts, each addressing the different roles of materials in sustainability concerns. The introductory phase delves into the various challenges posed by environmental, social, and economic sustainability in the present day. Material innovation and material design, coupled with ongoing global material activism in art and design, serve as catalysts for unconventional sustainable solutions. The foundational knowledge and examples of material design are introduced and explored, complemented by a guest lecture from Dr. Barbara Pollini. In this lecture, Dr. Pollini shares her insights and research findings on Healing Materiality and Biodesign in Politecnico di Milano. Subsequently, the course delves into rational material selection, life cycle assessment, and the discourse surrounding pressing issues essential for achieving sustainability across environmental, social, and economic aspects. The discussions also encompass integrating emerging technologies, social changes, and sustainable business practices. In addition, the course includes a collaborative visiting section to the art studio of Felix Große-Lohmann. During this visit, participants gain valuable insights into his work, which involves the collection and redistribution of raw materials for artists.

As the learning outcome, students are required to submit a research report, with the understanding and analysis of the State of the Art to rethink sustainable issues, and to bring out insights and to propose scenarios for future. The course output is a comprehensive reports collection, sharing contemporary insights into innovative sustainable materials within the realms of art and design.

Intended learning outcomes

- Acquire the knowledge of sustainable development and explore the new materials and their roles in achieving a sustainable transition;

- Rethink sustainability issues and apply the knowledge in various contexts

- Reflect on current issues and gain insights on new material innovations.

(Text written by Dr. Ziyu Zhou. )

The initial result was published in the Conference on Sustainable Energy Education – SEED 2024, at Valencia, Spain.

Click here to download this publication

Information for interventional lectures

Healing Materialities by Dr. Barbara Pollini

Dr. Barbara Pollini shared her ongoing PhD research on material scenarios based on regenerative processes, including living and life-enabling materials in her lecture: HEALING MATERIALITIES: from a Biodesign perspective. The lecture shared theoretical findings that emerged during her research path, mainly focusing on the research through design projects she carried out with various universities and research groups to test early findings and to study, from a first-person-perspective, the role of biodesigners and designers-in-lab in scientific contexts of different intensities. A reference website by Dr. Barbara Pollini: https://healing-materialities.design/home/

Material für Alle by Felix Große-Lohmann

Felix Große-Lohmann has been dealing with questions relating to material cycles in the art and cultural scene since his studies in art education and English studies. The year 2023 he designed a room for the network IfM - Initiatives for Material Cycles on the Hübner site of documenta fifteen and coordinated the events of the network. He is the founder of Galerie Husslehof and the Frankfurt material initiative MFA - Material for All, with which he collects materials from exhibitions and art productions, recycles them or makes them available to other artists. MFA - Material Für Alle is an organization for sustainable material cycles in the cultural sector in Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main region. All cities face the structural challenges of a sustainable circular economy. Since 2019, used materials from the cultural sector have been passed on by MFA for a maximum of half of the new price, exhibitions have been dismantled for better material reuse and new exhibition architectures and many other uses of the material pool have been developed. With the MFA app, materials can be digitized and made accessible to users, cooperation partners and for innovative design processes in CAD software.