Dissident GardensDissident Gardens

Contemporary designers increasingly work with living organisms and living materials, with often unknown applications. Biotopia showcases the role of the designer in this field as both researcher and maker, and presents alternatives that result directly from a direct collaboration with natural systems.

This is a new design paradigm, inspired by agriculture and focused on the cultivation of materials and products. Biotopia dives into the latest developments: from gene manipulation, which is used to tinker directly with the source of life - and nature - into new applications of natural processes that seek to change the entire production and distribution chain of design.

Biotopia presents three production lines, each featuring 'living' material studies and results that are ready for use: mycelium fungi, seaweed and algae threads and bacteria. These living products and materials demand care and dedication, in a contemporary take on maintenance and repair. After all, a product that is "grown" through living processes will undergo a cyclic process of death, decomposition and mutation.