Sustainability is one of the most important topics of the 21st century. Design, as a discipline of innovation, must play a leading role in optimising the environmental impact of all by-products and processes in the production of designed goods.
 All too often, most people take a stereotypical view of “sustainable products”. They are often associated with dirty colours and unpleasant aesthetics, owing to the use of second-grade, recycled, “primitive”, natural or non-processed materials. Furthermore, they are usually associated with higher prices or inferior quality.

Aesthetics of Sustainability aims to explore and define the aesthetics of a new generation of sustainable materials. The goals of the project are to push boundaries, explore aesthetics and define a contemporary language of sustainable materials and products through a systematic process of investigation, experimentation, creation and development within the context of product design.

The low impact of products is not only necessary, but it is also about to become a unique selling point for manufacturers. The tipping point when eco-friendly materials become more easily available and financially competitive on a larger scale will soon be reached. The outcome of the project is a series of 14 dossiers on the explored materials as well as mock-ups and prototypes of the resulting products.

The project offers a future generation of designers an array of operational tools and knowledge which explain how to discover, analyse and process seminal materials, how to work best with their qualities and how to turn them into functional yet aesthetically intriguing objects.

2019 / ECAL RESEARCH