DDW Talks: Sustainable ProductsDDW Talks: Sustainable Products

Design is partly to blame for an overabundance of products in our lives, but it can also offer a solution. Could sustainable materials help us build a better future? And what makes a product sustainable?

During this year's edition of the Sustainable Products Talk, we focus on glass from a material, product and consumer viewpoint. You are invited to a one-hour TV show delving into the life cycles of glass, its increasingly scarce component sand, and our relationship with it. It's widely advertised as a better choice than plastic, but how sustainable is glass really?

We come across glass at all hours of the day. From the first rays of sunshine through the window in the morning, to our glasses of water, the screens of our mobile phones, and a bottle of wine over dinner. How can industry keep up with these high production volumes? What do we know about the life cycle of glass products? And how do designers and companies account for the end of life of glass?

The Sustainable Products Talk is collaboration of DDW and content partner the New Material Award. After 10 years of engaging in material design, the New Material Award has come to end. As content partner the award shares its many insights and (material) expertise in relation to innovation and product design. The New Material Award is a collaboration between Fonds Kwadraat, Stichting DOEN and Het Nieuwe Instituut.

Watch live on 25 October at 5pm at: ddw.nl.

Curator of design at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Annemartine van Kesteren is a curator, design consultant and writer based in Rotterdam. She is part of the curatorial staff of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen where she is responsible for the collection of contemporary design and the programme Design in Boijmans. Recent exhibitions are Change the System and Boijmans-Ahoy, a drive-thru museum.

Trained as an industrial design engineer she worked for several years for the global strategic design team of Philips Design and developed new products and creative strategies for several clients in Europe, Asia and America. As a museum curator for contemporary design, she is fascinated by the cultural richness of the past and the embedded knowledge of the craft tradition, as the artistic expression of avant-garde trends.

Design researchers

Elissa Brunato and Christoph Dichmann are two critical designers based in London.

Their joint practice is research based, following the subject areas of ecology, sustainability and the human sensorium. They explore relations between material resources and commodity life cycles, civilisation and emerging ecosystems, and collective imaginary and individual perception, addressing both the notion of normality and sustainability. Their future-facing design approach is informed by cross-disciplinary facilitation, participatory research methodologies, qualitative expert interviews and quantitative data collection.

In their installation Float, they lay out their investigation into the parameters of today's flat glass industry, discussing the need to regulate our increasing demand for the non-renewable resource sand. The discussion points are collated from expert interviews conducted across industries related to sand who speak about the use of glass and its wider social and geological impacts. Highlighting the complexities of a globally local system, this created conversation seeks to explore the future dealings with float glass and its core ingredient, sand.

Founders of Re3 Glass, TU Delft

Faidra Oikonomopoulou and Telesilla Bristogianni both joined TU Delft in 2014 as PhD researchers focusing on the structural applications of cast glass. They both hold diploma degrees as architect engineers (NTUA) and an MSc degree in building technology (TU Delft).

They were deeply involved in the research and development of the adhesively bonded cast glass block system for the Crystal Houses façade in Amsterdam, designed by MVRDV. Together they supervised its entire construction as quality control engineers and even built the first 1.5 metres of the glass wall together with contractors. For their work on the Crystal Houses they have received multiple awards, including the Innovation Award 2016 by the Society of Façade Engineers and the Talent met Toekomst Bouwprijs 2017. Through this project they discovered the architectural potential of cast glass, but also saw the engineering challenges involved. This is when they conceived the idea of Re3 Glass; a reversible system out of recycled cast glass components. The project was awarded two 4TU.Bouw Lighthouse grants (2016, 2017), nominated for the New Material Award 2018 and the STARTS Prize 2020, and exhibited at Venice Design 2018, Dutch Design Week 2018, Milan Design Week 2019 and Vitra Schaudepot.

The two researchers have given multiple invited talks and workshops on the structural potential of cast glass, and published numerous scientific papers. They have also been involved in the development and prototyping of cast glass façades and structures such as the Glass Vault by SOM and Princeton University, and the Kuala Lumpur Bulgari façade designed by MVRDV (initial research stage). Oikonomopoulou successfully defended her PhD thesis with title "Unveiling the third dimension of glass" in 2019, where she introduced novel building systems with cast glass. Bristogianni is expected to complete her PhD thesis in 2020, on the strength of recycled cast glass.

Lecturer in circular design and entrepreneurship, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

Inge Oskam is professor of circular design and business at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS). She received her master's degree at TU Delft at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering in 1994 and recently obtained a PhD at VU University on collaborative business modelling for sustainability. She is co-responsible for the Centre of Expertise Urban Technology, as well as a member of the Centre of Expertise Urban Governance and Social Innovation of the AUAS. She is the driving force of the Circular Transition research theme.

Inge leads a research group consisting of PhDs, design researchers and research assistants with expertise in circular design, digital production technology, systems engineering, sustainable business modelling and impact assessment. Using a research through design approach, their common goal is to advance the knowledge around circular product design and business model strategies and systems design for closing urban material cycles.

Recent design research projects concern repurposing textile and plastic waste in urban applications, the adoption of local processing of organic municipal waste and the development of methods for resource-driven and collaborative business modelling. The research is carried out in close collaboration with municipalities, waste companies, SMEs and start-ups from the manufacturing and creative industry and knowledge institutes. The results have led to a large knowledge base that is captured in tools and methods, prototypes and exhibitions, professional applications and scientific papers.

Co-founder Atelier NL

With each wave of research and design, Atelier NL breaks ground for essential dialogues on production methods at the crossroads of design and science. Although wild raw materials have qualities that industry players view as "impure,"pure glass and ceramic sources come at a cost. In a nod to future sustainability, Atelier NL is exploring ancient methods of working with raw materials in the hope that, by merging past knowledge and current technology, we might forge a more balanced path into the future of production.

Segment leader training and R&D, at CelSian Glass & Solar

Oscar Verheijen received his master's degree in chemical engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology in In 1995. Following this, he worked for 12 years at the TNO Glass Group in various positions dedicated to glass technology, furnace simulations and control. Starting in 2008, Oscar became responsible within TNO for the business development of sustainable technologies, comprising technologies for biomass conversion, CO2 capture and utilisation and solar energy.

In September 2013, Oscar joined CelSian and is now active as consultant and business development manager of CelSian's activities in the field of R&D, training and laboratory services. In addition, Oscar is member of the Advisory Board of GlassTrend which is an international platform of over 50 glass producing companies and suppliers to the glass industry working together on pre-competitive research and development and sharing state-of-the-art know-how on key challenges of the glass industry, including CO2 reduction and process automation (industry 4.0).

Moderator

You might know Shayveca (Shay) Kreuger from the radio, TV or stage. From 2007 to 2018 she worked at FunX, where she was an eagerly heard DJ, also becoming an all-round host, interviewer and media-maker known for bringing fresh views to general topics and current events.

She made her first steps in the media landscapes as producer and co-host of the popular radio show Fresh'n Up (later Morad & Shay) on FunX. She presented at the North Sea Jazz Festival, interviewed well-known people from Diederik Jekel to Quincy Jones, was a reporter for 2Doc at IDFA and for Boss Raymann at NPO1. She talked about speaking and working dreams into existence at TedX and went to Kenya for Serious Request.

At Het Nieuwe Instituut she is part of the team behind For the Record,a research project on contemporary video clips form a public space for activism, commerce and emancipation. At Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences she is a study career coach and part-time lecturer in entrepreneurship. She is still on air - since 2017 on NPO Radio 2 with her programme SHAY!