The bio-composite N8040, developed by the company NPSP, is 100% bio-based and holds great potential. However, it faces a challenge as the black resin limits the possibility of incorporating pigmentation and it receives low user ratings on beauty and expected sustainability. This reflects a broader issue as sustainable materials struggle with social acceptance because they lack desirability, fail to clearly communicate their natural origin and are prone to decay. This conflicts with our aesthetic model where materials are expected to remain perfect and unchanged for centuries. Living Traces explores how to create an imperfect and evolving aesthetic for the N8040 material that conveys its sustainable nature. The project asks: what if decay is not a weakness, but a design tool to create facade panels that become more interesting with time?
What if we work with decay instead of resisting it?
Living Traces explores how to create an evolving aesthetic for the N8040 material that conveys its sustainable nature. The designer is inspired by natural materials like leather and wood that age with grace and wants to collaborate with nature instead of working against it. Imperfection is implemented in the production process to create a natural aesthetic, by adding fibres, fibres coloured with fungi and bio-based pigments. Practices like sandblasting, accelerated weathering and lab experiments are used to simulate the effects of wind, moisture, UV and biological colonisation on the aesthetics of the material. This allows the designer to anticipate and design for decay, leveraging it as a design opportunity. The result is a series of facade panels, one that gradually reveals flax fibres, one with wool that develops a patina over time and two bio-receptive panels that invite algae or mycelium growth. These facade panels gain value over time and embrace imperfection, impermanence and transformation.
Living Traces proposes an alternative, evolving aesthetic for sustainable materials to improve social acceptance. Instead of resisting decay, the designer uses it as a tool to design unique façade panels that gain value over time. Incorporating decay acknowledges that materials are not static, but part of a dynamic lifecycle. This approach blurs the boundaries between man-made artifacts and the natural environment and invites designers to work with natural processes instead of against them. At the same time questions remain about safety and durability for the integration of living organisms into facades. Nevertheless, Living Traces reimagines how sustainable materials are valued in our urban environment and demonstrates a future where buildings and nature evolve in harmony.
