The LDE CfS Talks are organized every second Wednesday. In this edition, Stefano Parisi (Assistant Professor Material-Driven Design at IDE, TU Delft) discusses Material-Driven Design for Regenerative Material Ecologies. Take a look at the recording at the bottom of this page.
Short summary
In this talk, Stefano will explore how a Material-Driven Design (MDD) approach can support the understanding, development, and application of emerging materials in ways that are meaningful for society and beneficial for the environment — beyond functional requirements alone. Drawing on examples ranging from fungal textiles to living materials, the lecture will illustrate how designers and researchers engaged in MDD can uncover novel material affordances through tinkering, or use materials experience thinking to capture and mobilize the meaningful material experiences. Stefano will also share ongoing work developed with his colleagues at the Centre of Design Research for Regenerative Material Ecologies (DREAM), where MDD is used as a guiding approach to rethink how we understand, make, and live with emerging material technologies in support of regenerative futures and planetary well-being.
Critically Exploring Material-Driven Design for Planetary Well-Being.”
Key takeways
- Material-Driven Design (MDD) is a design method that takes the material as an enty point of the process integrating technical, experiential, and ecological understanding from the very beginning, rather than selecting a material to satisfy predefined requirements, as in conventional design processes.
- The reception and success of a new material (or artefact) depend only partly on its technical and sustainability advantages; equally important is materials experience — what people think, feel, and do when they engage with it.
- Beyond sustainability lies regeneration — designing materials and artefacts that actively contribute to ecological and societal well-being; in MDD practices, we can do it by designing materials and artefacts for cyclical material and energy systems, biodiversity, more-than-human sensibilites, ecological litracy, and cultural change and holistic worldviews.
About the speaker
Stefano Parisi, PhD in Design, is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Department of Sustainable Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. His research focuses on Materials Experience and Material-Driven Design (MDD) practices, with an emphasis on biofabricated materials and their role in human and planetary well-being. He is coordinator of the MSc elective Material Driven Design. In 2024, he co-founded the Centre of Design Research for Regenerative Material Ecologies (DREAM), and he is a member of the Materials Experience Lab (). He also serves as a Local Chair of the BioDesign Conference 2026, the first international academic conference on Emerging Research at the Crossroads of Design, Biology, Computation, and Sustainability.
The LDE CfS Talks
Every two weeks, the LDE CfS hosts Talks, a series of online webinars where experts from academia, research institutes, businesses, and government come together to share knowledge and best practices for shaping a more sustainable and just society. The topics covered range from technical to social, including resource use & circularity, green energy, healthy environments, and social & economic transitions. The talks are organized on Wednesday morning from 10:00 to 11:00, and are online (Microsoft Teams).