The complex age we live in, characterised by the Anthropocene era and Industry 4.0, demands a radical paradigm shift in production, consumption, material choices, and, consequently, the relationship between designers and Nature.

In this scenario, the clothing industry is clearly in the spotlight for being one of the most significant contributors to global environmental disasters and resource depletion. Thus, now more than ever, it is time to promote an imperative change in the fashion system towards circularity and regeneration.

This chapter presents an updated and articulated state of art describing the strong bond between designers and Nature in the fashion field. Specifically, the analysis highlights inspiring and promising examples from design research and practice in relation to Biomimesis, particularly focusing on the integration of plants into the process.

To show the potential of Living and Growing Design in the clothing field, a case study of an experimentation journey undertaken by a fashion design practitioner is illustrated, analysing its use of textiles as substrates for seedlings.

Through the MDD method, the DIY-Materials approach and Tinkering activities, the current research employs seeds, plants and bio-based materials as tangible tools to enable an emotional connection between users and their garments. The study produced theoretical and practical outputs: a material library, a speculative fashion collection, and an open-source manual for DIY experimentation and testing. These outcomes aim to inspire designers to care for their artefacts and foster a renewed connection with Nature.@en

Over the past decades, emerging materials have gained prominence in design practice, driving innovation and generating added value to products and systems; they play a crucial role in improving physical performance and enhancing product language, facilitating novel dynamic experiences and unique expressive‑sensorial dimensions. […] @en

Introduced in 2020, the notion of living artefacts encompasses biodesign outcomes that maintain the vitality of organisms such as fungi, algae, bacteria, and plants in the use of everyday artefacts, enabling new functions, interactions, and expressions within our daily lives. This paper situates living artefacts at the intersection of the sustainability discourse and more-than-human ontologies, illuminating the unprecedented opportunities that living artefacts present for regenerative ecologies. These ecologies are characterized by a fundamental inclination toward mutualism, creativity, and coevolution. In regenerative ecologies, the human-nature relationship transcends the binary distinction and it manifests as a single autopoietic system in which the constituent members collaboratively engage in the creation, transformation, and evolution of shared habitats. The paper outlines five pillars, supplemented by guiding questions and two illustrative cases, to aid designers in unlocking, articulating, and critically evaluating the potential of living artefacts for regenerative ecologies.@en

The critical environmental conditions of the planet compel humankind to rapidly devise solutions able to minimize the impact of human actions on Earth. Environmental issues are urgent, so researchers and practitioners in the design field are committed to formalising new visions and pathways, willing to meet the SDGs of the 2030 agenda. While formulating less affecting processes of making/manufacturing, a conscious practice of design recognises materials and their 38 management as a critical point for sustainable production. The material, formerly considered a step of the design process, now becomes the the focus of the project; unfortunately, there is a lack of dedicated studies and initiatives to implement material awareness in design education. To envision an effective ecological transition, material design turns into an inescapable step when designing for sustainability. It’s fundamental for design schools to invest in material education by establishing dedicated courses that boost this realm of knowledge, material understanding, and to improve the making skills of new generations of designers. This chapter focuses on the results of the DIY-Material approach used in the last few years at the Design School of Politecnico di Milano. The developed approach allows to teach students transversally how to design materials starting from a source, going through ingredients, compositions, recipes, and processes, creating material demonstrators, and defining the identity of the new material and its narratives. Here, a series of bio-based, bio fabricated material examples will be illustrated to describe the development of material pathways pointing towards an ecological transition through a DIY-Materials approach.@en

Lately, designers have become deeply interested in the materials generation process. With an approach of transforming unconventional elements into possible materials, they discover many possibilities with new characteristics ready to explore. This article discusses a study proposing concepts of materials generation, focusing on self-production in a pandemic context of domestic isolation and resource limitations. It follows the Do-It-Yourself Materials approach to create homemade samples (organic waste-based) and the experience-based method called Material Driven Design (to search for new insights in the material samples) as a framework. The research presents some tools to measure and understand possible new materials. It evaluates the materials experience generated in users when using unconventional sources for their creation and shares some information to get a more straightforward path when choosing to work with an experimental approach to developing alternative materials.@en

Materials experience as a field has evolved substantially and is now mobilized to incorporate new ways of thinking and doing in design. The field has helped designers and researchers transform materials and design from a narrow-focused technically oriented selection process into a vibrant, investigative, and inspirational practice. This chapter introduces new and emerging relationships between designers, materials, and artifacts. To set a background, a concise account is provided of the lineage of materials experience and the materials experience framework. Three key themes defining the contemporary view of materials experience are explained. The first theme is the changing role of design and designers, where subjects including material-driven design practices, material tinkering, and DIY (do-it-yourself) materials, and the emergence of the material designer are introduced. The second theme is the changing role of materials themselves: materials are increasingly the centerpiece for design ideation and are becoming-especially through biodesign practices-active and influential agents within and outside design processes. The third theme is the role of materials experience in responding to sustainability goals, providing a foundation not only for inspiring environmentally sensitive material innovations but also for exploring people’s acceptance of such novel material proposals. Materials experience is projected to grow in importance: as a catalyst for new design practices (ways of thinking, ways of doing), as an influence on thoughtful choices of materials for design, and as a lens through which thoughtful decisions in new materials development may be taken.

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Materials embedded in products behave differently with the passing of time. This can be witnessed either as graceful ageing, or as material degradation. Some materials can appear to be ‘alive’: they can sense and respond, and change state; they can show different ‘faces’ depending on applications and circumstances; they can remain personal and appropriate over time. Materials can reflect fashions in a particular era, or they can exhibit timelessness, for example. Such experiential qualities of materials inevitably affect the way we use, and the time span we possess, everyday products. In this chapter, we propose three strategies, which focus on the potential experiences we have with and through the materials of products that last; these are: (1) embrace imperfection; (2) do it yourself; and (3) multi-situated materials. With the term ‘materially yours’, we highlight the idea of resilience thinking, in which the most responsive to change will survive. We capitalize on this thinking in all three strategies, by offering a sense of ambiguity, curiosity, flexibility and openness in material thinking in design. We further explain these new strategies with a number of illustrative cases throughout the chapter.@en

The DIY movement is expanding beyond products to the materials which embody products; namely, DIY-Materials. DIY-Materials are created through individual or collective self-production practices, often by techniques and processes of the designer's invention. In this paper, we elaborate on the sources that can serve as a departure point for DIY material practices. Analyzing above 150 design cases, we introduce five main catergories of DIY-Materials based on the material sources. Inspired by the biological classification of elements of earth, we name these categories as DIY-Materials Kingdoms. We present each kingdom with example cases supported by rich visuals to illustrate the process and the outcome of the DIY-Materials design effort.@en

The use of materials derived from waste is one of the prominent ways to contribute to sustainable product design. However, there is a stark gap in literature concerning how people appraise such materials. In this paper, we present our initial attempts to understand the aesthetic appreciation of materials, in particular those derived from discarded raw materials, i.e., revived materials. Two studies were conducted for which we took the aesthetic principle unity-in-variety as the departure point. In the first study, we explored material appraisals by testing whether different visual and tactile qualities interrelate with each other in a similar or contradictory way. Based on these findings, two revived materials were modified and our main assumptions were further explored in Study 2. We outline our findings and show that the aesthetic appreciation of a material can be influenced by the (in)congruity between visual and tactile qualities of the material.

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