Final Project: Material Archive
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##What?
A proposal for an online accessible open-source material archive with DIY recipes for renewable and biocompostable (or recycled) materials for designers. It is based on the knowledge collected and created in and around the Fabricademy network, and builds upon the (physical) Material Archive at Textile Lab Waag that was realised by Cecilia Raspanti, Maria Viftrup and others in 2016-2017.
A selection of 25 biofabricated materials is already documented and forms a suggested "starter archive" for anyone who would like to build their own physical archive with samples. Building the basic archive will teach you the foundational techniques that most other recipes will build upon, and require you to collect the basic tools and ingredients you will need.
I analysed at a number of online and offline archives, such as Materiom (link), Materiability (link), The Institute of Making at UCL London), Material Archive Textile Lab Amsterdam (link), Material District (link) for how they....
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##Why?
Biofabricating can be further demystified
Some archives tend to mystify the process of biofabricating (using expert terminology, not explaining in detail how to actually do something). Getting very scientific or very technical about it without explaining hands-on knowledge in laymen's terms.
Biofabrication can be further clarifying (but not simplified!)
alternatively, archives and resources tend to oversimplify the process (a three step summary of a process where many more intricated details matter. Knowing how to cook a bioplastic is easy, knowing how to dry it well is much less documented.
Material Archives can and should take an open-source DIY approach (Do-It-Yourself)
Many archives will show you what's out there (to buy), but don't give the concrete info you need to biofabricate yourself even though you can often try out these things in your kitchen and most recipes are in the commons and can be used by anyone.
Do-It-Together
When recipes and how-to's are shared (e.g. Material Archive, Materiability etc.) there is often no way to disagree on recipes. What is there is there and cannot be improved or responded to by others.
Context-aware approach (exit the candy shop)
A lot of
Tactile / sound demo often lacking but very necessary
The tactile dimension that is so important part of a physical archive is lacking in most online ones to help people understand the kind of material they can make with a given recipe