researchers and students at the 4TU curated by the Making Matters team at Design United
How do we build the new everyday through fabricated, bio, and computational matter?
The sample gallery provides a unique insight into the making process of design research across the 4TU. The gallery reveals the hidden treasures that come to life but are typically not documented or shared: the artifacts, experiments, mistakes, jigs, and tools. The gallery demonstrates both craftsmanship and diversity in research on a gradient from fabricated to bio matters and shows how computation plays a significant role in future making.
SIDKIT a Toolkit for Sonic Interaction Design
by Jef Rouschop
SIDKIT is an entry-level toolkit for designing interactive sound, made specifically for designers. It enables prototyping an interaction, connecting it to sound, and altering the relationship between the two.
Sand Me Awareness
By Ankita Arora, Elena Tonelli, Jingyi Zhao, Yuchen Lei
Harassment permeates every corner of society and its prevalence is often underestimated. The project spreads awareness about harassment in the workplace and assists victims in their healing process.
Soft Circuits Toolkit
By Katrien van Riet
The Soft Circuits Toolkit allows anyone to prototype air-driven soft circuits. Designers develop the skills to use the toolkit to develop soft robots or intelligent devices such as shape-changing wearables.
FlavoMetrics - an Interactive, Digital Tool for Biodesign
By Clarice Risseeuw, Jose Martinez Castro, Pascal Barla, and Elvin Karana
This interactive, digital tool supports biodesigners in exploring Flavobacteria’s living colour. Users can virtually inoculate Flavobacteria and observe their temporal and responsive behaviour in an agile, accessible, and resource-efficient manner.
3D Printed one-part eyeglasses frame design
By Daan van Meurs
This 3D Printed eyeglasses frame was designed to make it possible to manufacture frames locally, anywhere. The unique hinge design permits printing the frame in one part, making assembly redundant.
Assistive Wearable for Elbow Rehabilitation
By Chenyi Zhu
A series of modularized sleeves with configured therapeutic functions fit for different elbow rehabilitation scenarios, demonstrate the potentials of applying fabric soft pneumatic actuation (FSPA) technology to rehabilitation product design.
Heritage Reborn
By Anne Eijkelkamp
More than a million kilos of wool are wasted in the Netherlands annually. Using wool as a design starting point, Heritage Reborn demonstrates opportunities for blending wool with hemp.
Livy - illuminated wall panels
By Nelson van de Kar
The synthesis of digital manufacturing and lighting design sparked the creation of these beautiful and dynamic patterns of light and shadow, enhancing the well-being of nursing home residents.
Perinatal Life Support
By Juliette van Haren, Frank Delbressine
Perinatal Life Support is a liquid-based incubator (Artificial Womb) for premature infants. Physical simulation allows safe early medical research. MRI-based moulds aid silicon-casting for manikin development.
The BioSequence - a Bioplastics Toolkit
By Anna Leeman
The BioSequence demonstrates the use of bioplastics as a sustainable alternative in the fashion industry. With 70 samples and a DIY toolkit, the exhibited sample focuses on flexibility.
3D Woven Denim
By Barbara Vroom and Sterre de Jager
3D weaving enables zero-waste design and reduces production steps through multi-layered textile forms. This innovative technique fuels sustainable denim via local, transformative manufacturing - requiring new aesthetics and design practices.
Grass paper
By Julie Heij
These samples are made with the traditional papermaking technique, using only grass and grass seeds. Using a more-than-human design approach, we explored a collaboration with grass as a non-human co-designer.
mycoSonic material showcase : Mycelium composite samples
By Richa Saini
The samples exhibit biofabricated mycelium composites using various industrial waste materials like wool, cotton, and sawdust, developed using a material-driven design approach.
Fabulous Feathers - 4D Printing Feathers
By Hannah Eikens
4D printed Feathers are generated using specially-developed software. They start flat and become curved through submersion in hot water; the samples show attractive deformation as temperatures increase.
Shape changing interior textile for wellbeing
By Maria Christina Chrysikou
The textile is woven from cotton, paper, and polyester yarn, incorporating shape memory alloy wires. When heated, the wires straighten and the openings close to regulate sunlight and maximize comfort.
More-than-human Materiality
By Marc Wijkmans
Vast amounts of wool are wasted annually in the Netherlands. This project reclaims the value of Dutch wool by crafting eco-friendly material composites in sync with the sheep's natural habitat.
Generating value from high-performance waste materials
By Taissia Visser and Palen d’Costa
This woven nylon climbing rope is part of a library that demonstrates the value of diversifying the experiential qualities of high-performance waste materials to find new contexts of use.
The Doodle Printer
By Pauline Vaandrager
The relationship between human and 3D printer is traditionally delegation-based: human envisions, printer executes. This sample is produced by an AI-driven 3D printing setup which aims instead for collaborative doodling.
Chitosan-based humidity responsive actuators
By Karijn Den Teuling
This project introduces chitosan as a biodegradable and humidity-responsive actuator, inspired by its hydromorphic transformation while focusing on exploring its utilization to support sustainable approaches to haptic and shape-changing interaction.
Water Assessment System for Nepal
By Zacharias Cobut, David Soche, Jannieke den Breejen, Pablo Yániz González, Laetitia Zwart
This engraved metal plate is part of a water testing prototype for Nepal. It facilitates water quality testing, offering rapid test results and E.coli prevention instructions for safe drinking water.
Bloomi
By Wouter Bollen
This flower is designed to stimulate daily activity for older adults. The flower slowly opens during the day based on the users’ steps compared to their daily step goal.
VENTI - A toolkit for pneumatic interfaces
By Tessa van Abkoude
Shape-changing interfaces enhance natural and intuitive human-computer interactions, yet designing them presents challenges. VENTI offers an accessible and modular way for designers to explore pneumatic interactions and haptics.
Inflatable flower with pouch push button
By Charlotte Bording
A heat-sealed flower with an interactive 3D-printed layer. Gently press the sealed pouch to reveal the blossoming surprise; the structured stiffness facilitates its curl-up pattern.
Pair Collator: enabling pair reflection on personal data
By Di Yan
Two users can collaboratively explore their and others’ sleep data by constructing, comparing, and overlaying transparent data strips on a canvas, unveiling hidden patterns and enhancing self-knowledge on sleep.
Duckweed: from waste stream to table
By Margot Beekhuizen
Results from experiments involving duckweed demonstrate its potential as both a biomaterial and a protein source due to its ideal amino acid composition.
Binderless board: performance materials from biobased side-streams
By Martien van den Oever and Edwin Keijsers
By using the intrinsic functionality of fractions in the biomass, a performance board material can be produced from lignocellulosic side-streams by means of a single step process and without adding a binder.
Sustainable Making Futures
By Jairo da Costa, Rosangela Tenorio, David Morgan
This research-through-design project fosters sustainable personal fabrication practices by empowering citizens with tools and resources to build better living and work environments.