63 — Studio Klarenbeek & Dros

Design Research

ERIC KLARENBEEK & MAARTJE DROS

63

Portrait Maartje Dros and Eric Klarenbeek, Zahra Reijs / Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, 2020

Everything around us

has to be questioned.

This is actually

an essential step for

change to be possible.

Cover: Replica of Vennola's 'Kaveri' set made of Weedware©, Friedrich Gerlach / Klarenbeek & Dros, 2020

ERIC KLARENBEEK & MAARTJE DROS

Designers of the unusual – closing the circle with bio-design Fragment of 3D printed structure made of Weedware©, Klarenbeek & Dros, 2020

Maartje Dros on the possibility

of curing our plastic addiction

with seaweed, mycelium and moss

Researching biopolymers, making chairs from mycelium and cups from algae… the Studio Klarenbeek & Dros skill set must be quite diverse?

Well, I suppose it might look like that, but we have been working on the integration of eco-technological solutions since 2005, using robotics and innovative production processes in public space settings together with many other pioneers and network partners.

We’ve also been focused on local economies, (re)shaping them and introducing chains that support, stimulate and regenerate our social environments and surroundings with locally sourced biomaterials.

So, for us, after 15 years, this all seems quite normal!

Actually, what is a biopolymer?

It’s a plastic replacer. It’s not derived from oil, or other mined materials.

Biopolymers are made of natural, not synthetic materials. This means that the material has also bound CO 2 during its life, and by conversion to a bioplastic, it also functions as a form of CO 2 storage, creating a natural CO 2 absorbtion and binding cycle.

organisations focussing on seabed production, which solves this problem very well, since we have a lot of salt water around the Netherlands.

In fact, this is one thing we have always done – collaborate with lots of companies and experts. And, you know, we find them in some unexpected places.

You can make a biopolymer from many different types of material, including natural materials like seaweed or mycelium.

We work with scientists, universities, NGOs and companies who are always searching for an angle, a space where they can innovate. They are searching for ways to make improvements.

Where do you search for new biopolymers?

Most of them derive from landbased plants and vegetation, but these are also in competition with our food supply chain. We are working with

So, we work against this background of a curious mindset, with autonomous individuals, even though they’re part of a larger organisation. With that sort of passion, we have been able to create our own projects, too. And, along the way, also create new networks.

Independent mindsets seem in short supply these days… is it hard to find collaborators?

You know, I think we make the effort and we are sensitive. We have been lucky to find the people we have worked with, but there are more than a few who fit this pattern. People that are curious and keen to make improvements. But maybe they haven’t been asked to bring that quality out of themselves yet…?

Both Eric and I studied at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. And I think that is quite a special design education. It’s not only focused on technical skills, on form and colours and mind-maps. They

really build autonomous thinking and visionary perspective on ‘the now.’

It’s about being sensitive and intuitive in connection with innovative production. I think it’s also about connections.

What kind of connections are you looking for?

Most of the time we are searching in areas that are kind of new, and full of potential. We look at problematics, innovations and the ‘undiscovered’.

But of course, these things always have a historical context, a background, and experts.

So you create networks?

We have what we learn independently about a field, such as algae.

Then there’s the pioneers, people who are very much ‘into’ a particular thing, long before it becomes normal. And there are also lots of people that ask questions and have a passion, who maybe form a subculture.

We also introduce current producers to innovations and new materials by partnering with them to make the first trails and proof of concepts. Lots of companies have been inspired to redevelop their production procedures after working with us. When this

Replica in decay of Copier's KLM Cup made of Weedware©, Friedrich Gerlach / Klarenbeek & Dros, 2020 Harvesting microalgae in the Camargue, South of France, Victor Picon / Atelier Luma, 2018

happens, we are so happy and proud.

But, these days, we are getting more involved ourselves, looking to grow together with these partners, once they have been inspired to take on our ideas.

Did you go into design thinking it would be like this?

I was very much interested in working with people. For me, it’s about the quality and responsibilities of our communities and surroundings.

I come from the island of Texel, where there’s a community of 17,000 people and a village of seven hundred.

There’s a lot of community work, a lot of pioneers. And a lot of shop owners.

You either have a shop and are the entrepreneur, or you work for one of them. I'm on the side of being an entrepreneur.

Also, island life means collaborating with the people around you, whether that’s the mayor or the farmer or the doctor, it doesn’t matter. You have to work together.

Sounds like a good microcosm for understanding how to build a world It is. And you are always in contact with the landscape there, and the power of nature. You realise that you will need to battle, sometimes.

You need to battle boredom too, and embrace the stranger in the form of tourists. There’s always somebody with different perspectives and views that wants to change things in their way.

You have to collaborate with them.

Did you meet Eric at Eindhoven?

Yes, and he came from an island too! An artificial island named Flevoland.

So, Eric came with the idea that it’s possible to build anything you like.

Embrace innovative thinking and you can even control your own land. You can create land.

At Eindhoven, we encountered international students for the first time too.

We were working with groups of designers from Israel, Italy, America and Iceland. Everybody came together.

There were lots of different minds, lots of different ideas.

It sounds like a real melting pot We spent long nights discussing everything you can imagine. Politics, work, world views and food! And, I remember once, a student gave a presentation in which she proposed this thing: a space of 80 cm wide, 2 meters high with a black box behind it.

What was it? Of course, she was talking about a door. A door! But for me, that highlighted the idea that everything around us has to be questioned. This is actually an essential step for change to be possible.

Degeneration tank (medium) with scale model of Ineke Hans' Tête-à-tête, made of Weedware©, Roel van Tour / Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, 2020

It showed me the possibilities of design too. That we can discuss the borders, or that we can discuss concepts and steps, and change things. We can open up our minds and do that – in a shared way. We can discover things as a group.

What was Eric’s focus at Eindhoven?

He was into robotics. He was always into the problems and possibilities of technology and digital information. Artificial life and our life’s purpose.

He wanted to know, how can we improve or change or review the qualities of our current world. And, what happens if we do that together, with the acceptance of Technology?

Do you think of yourselves as scientists, designers… artists?

Well, our education is in art & design. We both have a passion for all forms of art. For example, music, Eric studied drums, and I’ve been a dancer all my life. When it comes to science, Eric is more into technology and I'm more into biology, but our starting point is design.

We really like to work with fluidity and growth too. That is what we learned as designers.

So, how did you get into bio-design?

We were on a project about possibilities for local production. We had set up local networks before, and we were now thinking about how to connect production networks via smart global design communities. This is our 3Dbakery project At the time, we were already 3D printing, but we were only using plastic materials. Anyway, right in the middle

of the project, Eric was asked to join a design exhibition in India. And there he met the people, the families, that are recycling plastic in their homes.

Once you see who’s doing it for us, that’s when you realise that recycling is not the way.

How do families recycle plastics?

All the leftovers that we dump, they put on their rooftops. Then the children get the boxes out in the living room and they start splitting the stuff up into colours. Meanwhile papa is re-granulating the sorted plastics. The fumes and the horror were so ’in your face.’

That was our first clue that ‘this is not working. This is not good.’ And there was a direct connection to what we

were doing in our workspaces as well.

So, we began promoting the idea of producing more locally, while searching for more sustainable and local materials.

Maybe we need to take more responsibility for our production system, so we can produce smaller quantities. We don’t have to always produce more, just so that it’s available. If we are then intoxicating ourselves and our communities, what good is this?

Later, back in Holland, we came into contact with a mushroom research group at the Wageningen University & Research (WUR). They were investigating the production of edible mushrooms, we were into 3D printing organisms. So we proposed the mycelium chair.

It’s about being sensitive

and intuitive in connection

with innovative production.

I think it’s also about

connections.

Mycelium Chair for Centre George Pompidou, Klarenbeek & Dros, 2018

Your Mycelium Chair is incredible looking. Did it take quite a lot of iterations before it worked?

There was a lot of experimentation involved! I think the project took almost a year. We installed a temporary lab in an arboretum because we needed to learn how to grow mushrooms. Then we had learn how to make 3D prints that are good for mycelium growth.

At that point, we found out that it’s not only form that matters, it’s material too. Wood filament was the key. Wood filament was the key, but, we needed to improve on every front. And for this,

Eric is very much in the trenches. I think he created five different printers, tweaking them to print mycelium.

So the chair is 3D printed with Mycelium? How does that work?

Well, the first versions had puddinglike structures, but they became more stable when we used two print heads working simultaneously. In the end, we developed a kind of skin and in-fill system.

Then we met Ecovative, from America.

They contacted us and said, “Hey,

we’re coming to Holland so why don’t we visit your studio and we can get to know each other? They had already got quite far with their own mycelium material – a substitute for styrofoam packaging.

When you first sat on a functional mycelium chair, that must have felt like a turning point?

It was a super amazing moment.

When it bloomed too, it was a total surprise. It was so powerful and fruitful that it exploded with mushrooms.

This was a really nice surprise…

Of course, it was not so good for the chair, because the mushrooms were eating all the strength of it. But at that moment, it was amazing.

That's why we became excited about the idea of doing a startup and collaborating further with Ecovative, really searching for market potential. But we stayed curious too.

Looking for new raw materials?

Well, we had these 3D printers and the clean room, so other universities came to us with new projects. That was how we started working with algae At the Avans College of Breda, researchers were looking for possible uses for algae in the Netherlands.

Because we have so much sea, and we have windmills being built on the sea, they saw this as a possible field of production.

An NGO, the Dutch Seaweed Farm, did a test, to grow seaweed, and it was successful. We got the first strain of that seaweed when they were searching for people who wanted to do materials work with it.

Detail Mycelium Chair for Centre George Pompidou, Klarenbeek & Dros, 2018

We don’t have to

always produce more,

just so that it’s available.

If we are then intoxicating ourselves and

our communities,

what good is this?

Drinking cups Replica of Vennola's 'Kaveri' set, made of Weedware©, Friedrich Gerlach / Klarenbeek & Dros, 2020

Is algae more or less eco-friendly than Mycelium?

Well, mushrooms produce CO2 , but algae absorbs it, and gives us oxygen.

So the two are in balance with each other. This seems like a very natural combination. A set of organisms that can fit each other and close the circle.

Working on the Seaweed Cycle, we also collaborated with another team at WUR, who had facilities for filament making, compounding and extrusion.

That’s how we made our first filaments with only local ingredients.

The filaments are what feed the 3D printer, right?

Yeah, that’s the roll that feeds the printer. But this roll is made out of granulates, and granulates can also be used in different recipes.

Actually, they work with the same kind of machines as the regular plastic industry. Once you have a compound, you can then injection mould, or make sheets, or filaments.

We are really interested in opening up this huge market. The same market which is causing the problems we saw in India.

What is the long term solution?

We believe that we can produce things which are more closely tied to their actual use.

Think, what is the lifespan of a product?

What should it be? Shouldn’t it be variable? If we need only a single-use item, why should it last longer than 24 hours?

Do each of the raw materials suit certain uses, or types of structure?

The thing with creating biopolymers is that they can suit all forms and all markets.

Filament role of Weedware©, Friedrich Gerlach for Klarenbeek & Dros, 2020

But we usually need to make a proof of concept and tell a story. And in storytelling, it makes sense to not go too far off from the concept.

How can you connect it to landscape preservation? Because Arles is in the Rhone Delta, they have the same problem as Holland, with rising sea levels.

So, how did you end up creating the Algae Lab in Arles?

The question there was, how do you envision a new role for the people of Arles, and for production in Arles?

We already did a project in Amsterdam focussing on Algae production in the City. In Arles we found the connection in Roman history, which is very rich in the city. At the museum, they had an amazing collection of cutlery and terra sigillata pottery, which is very fine quality.

The pottery was found in the Rhone itself. We thought it would be nice to bring it back into production, back to the community. So, the work we did there doesn't look like Algae at all, but is made with it, and has this beautiful connection to the rivers and delta around Arles.

Algae is very versatile then!

It really is. Actually, algae has different properties than fibrous material. Different to plant material, because it builds up from single cells.

Detail 3D printer, printing a replica of a Vennola wine glass out of Weedware©, Roel van Tour for Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, 2020

So, that collaboration at Arles was about trying to make an economical landscape that can support a community. But we realised that, if we do this together with research, then we might have completely novel outcomes.

These biopolymers could help us to transform communities.

What does your ideal future look like?

Giving the balance back to our ecosystems, I think this is the aim.

Products that we don’t need to last very long can be naturally returned to the ecology, used to benefit the soil.

And I think the solution is going to be pluri-form, versatile and on all kind of scales. There's going to be more possibilities for production and I think this change is going to be supported by big traditional companies too. That's what we hope and aim for.

Are there any obstacles?

Official validation of the materials is the big one. This costs a lot of money and is very hard.

We’re ready to implement the 3D bakery concept that we have, where your local bakery could 3D-print your products using a biopolymer instead of regular plastic.

But we need the material to be validated, so it can be safely distributed. That’s not so easy because plastic has quite a lot of regulations, and it has quite a lobby. But we are working on it!

So you need an official stamp of approval before you can really go into production?

Yes, and once your biopolymer is approved you have a certificate

for one year. When the year is up, you have to start all over again. So, you need to know exactly what you’re going to do and bring it through very rapidly.

Caraffe and Cups made of microalgae and sugar-based biopolymers, Jona Luz for Atelier Luma, 2018

Bigger companies can do this validation in-house sometimes. The only problem with that is – companies like to own something at the end of the process and we are hoping to create a shared system that can be broadly accessed.

Do you have products ready to go?

We have the cups, roof tiles for green roofs, and vases for instance.

They don't have any waste material.

We tested them so well that they cannot fail in the printing process.

You see, printing looks like it should be easy. You can just press a button and print something. But, it doesn’t work that way in practice. If we have a new intern at the lab, it takes three months before the first good print rolls out of the printer.

Now the 3D Bakery idea makes even more sense!

Yes, printing on demand is a lot easier than telling people to, ‘just buy a printer and do everything yourself.’

It’s not quite for everybody but it could be within reach of everybody. That infrastructure is available already.

Breaking down of a Replica of Copiers' KLM cup made of Weedware©, Klarenbeek & Dros, 2021

Replica of Vennola's 'Kaveri' set made of Weedware©, Friedrich Gerlach for Klarenbeek & Dros, 2020

What other products are ready to go?

Right now we are focusing on a flower pot, a planter, made out of seaweed. This is the first impact-making product that can be rolled out on a very large scale.

It has been validated by the farmer we are working with. And we are also

collaborating with an injection moulding company that has a lot of clients in agriculture. That’s a huge sector that really needs to improve.

The pot will decompose within half a year, but it will be stable enough to go through all the production steps.

And it’s all automated.

Replica of Copiers' KLM cup and plate made of Weedware©, Friedrich Gerlach for Klarenbeek & Dros, 2020

3D printer and degeneration tank (large), Roel van Tour for Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, 2020

There are so many elements to your work. Do you have a favourite part of the process?

For me it’s the curiosity, the learning. Being close to knowledge, to experts and being able to look in the kitchen, instead of just the front office.

I need to get behind the scenes. It’s great when you’re invited to do that.

You must dare to ask, to discuss and be enthusiastic about the possible outcomes, because there are always surprises.

What’s on your horizon? What’s next?

After 10 years of working with mycelium and algae, for us, this is the period where we have really begun to see attention from the market. There’s finally real focus, and enough interest to implement our ideas. That’s what we working hard for now.

So, impact . That is the next magical word. There is such a huge potential market out there. And we would like to be a part of it.

Online exhibition 'Breakdown Economy' Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Roel van Tour for Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, 2020-2021

You must dare to ask,

to discuss and be enthusiastic

about the possible outcomes,

because there are always surprises.

We believe that

we can produce things

which are more closely

tied to their actual use.

Detail Mycelium Chair for Centre George Pompidou, Klarenbeek & Dros, 2018

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This catalogue is published for the lecture of Eric Klarenbeek and Maartje Dros "Designers of the unusual" at Mudam Luxembourg on 18th May, 2022 organised by Design Friends

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