HOW TO HOPE TO BE

An exploration in biobased building together with the community

This project is now archived and was part of DDW24

This project is part of
The Symbiocene Forest - Coexistence

HOW TO HOPE TO BE, BioArt Laboratories, 2024

Catinca Tilea

Designer Catinca Tilea is exploring what it would be like if everybody could build with organic waste. Together with the audience, she has built a canopy on the site of BioArt Laboratories. This social project considers different ways in which our relationship with nature could change.

Organic waste from your home = a building material

Household organic waste serves as a substrate for mycelium forming. This becomes a solid material that can be used to build with. Designer Catinca Tilea has invited the audience to assemble bio-bricks, exploring how people interact with this method. The bio-bricks visitors have grown last year during Dutch Design Week are assembled into an outdoors canopy, on the terrain of BioArt Laboratories.

More community involvement in sustainable practices

The key feature in building with organic waste is that people would do it themselves in their neighbourhoods. Such a practice could considerably reduce the amounts of waste that we all create. It could also educate and make people reflect upon the current lifestyles we lead. The proposal is to use this biotechnique at the heart of a community to empower people to help in a way that is meaningful to their surroundings.

We too are part of the ecosystem

Our anthropocentric culture is slowly crumbling down our own 'habitat'. With her social experiment, designer Catinca Tilea proposes to enable existing knowledge of biotech as a social tool. This could help make the cultural shift we need so that we may understand that we too are part of nature.