This project explores how engagement with mycelium-receptive living artefacts can contribute to ecological literacy and nature connectedness in children. Within the scope of this project, ecological literacy serves as the foundation for exploring the potential of living artefacts to foster ecological awareness and knowledge-building, support transformative learning through place-based experiences, and help bridge the pedagogical gaps left by conventional education.

Ecological literacy refers to the ability to understand ecological systems, including how they function and interconnect. A widespread lack of such understanding is increasingly recognised as a major barrier to achieving sustainability. While ecological literacy forms the basis for well-informed, sustainable decision-making, nature connectedness is equally important for pro-environmental behaviour. However, children growing up in urban environments often lack access to nature, leading to lower ecological literacy and feeling less connected to the natural world. This disconnect is concerning, as it not only affects children’s wellbeing but also their relationship with nature and their future environmental attitudes and behaviours. Addressing this issue through nature education in primary schools is therefore crucial to raising future generations who understand, care for, and act to protect natural environments. Consequently, this project focuses on primary school children between the ages of 8 and 12. In doing so, it aims to contribute both to educational methods and tools for nature education and to academic discourse on regenerative and more-than-human design.

The project adopts a research through design approach, combining methods from material-driven and participatory design while including more-than-human perspectives. Through material explorations in multispecies contexts, it examines how biodegradable and living materials can support mycelial growth and interaction, with the broader aim of developing materials that children can safely and playfully use to create their own mycelium-receptive living artefacts. In addition, a workshop conducted with primary school children explored how nature-based learning can lead to understanding and empathy for non-human organisms. Central to the workshop was an enactment exercise in which children imagined themselves as fungi in a local park, expressing their understanding of and sensitivity towards non-human species. Insights from these activities informed the conceptualisation of an experimentation toolkit for nature education, consisting of a presentation, workbook, and shapeable composite material that enables children to shape, place, and observe their own living artefacts.

The toolkit was tested with 71 children aged 8–12. Their creations and placement decisions revealed sensitivity and empathy toward fungi and their environments, particularly when encouraged to reflect on their actions. The workshop could be independently facilitated by a teacher, demonstrating its feasibility in a real-world educational context. Findings suggest that engaging with living artefacts situated in local natural environments can strengthen ecological literacy and nurture caring relationships with non-human life. Further research is needed to measure long-term effects on ecological literacy and nature connectedness, and to refine the material properties of the mycelium-receptive composite. ... Read more

Urban forests are now digitalized as smart green infrastructures to mitigate environmental change. Cities are proactively planting and replacing trees considering their future ecosystem benefits, such as carbon sequestration, urban heat reduction, and water retention. Digital twin simulation is a key technology enabling this particular mode of governance, which generates future scenarios under various management schemes. These data inform decisions on tree selection and placement, thereby shaping forests into uniquely efficient and responsive urban organisms. Despite its positive prospects, however, the underlying ontologies of these digital forests are rarely questioned, often lacking consideration for the flora and fauna inhabiting the forests. The models built upon anthropocentric biases and values pose a risk of selectively consolidating futures where the forests are optimized only for humans, which does not always guarantee the same good future for multi-species.
Acknowledging that humans coexist with other forms of life, Eco-Urban Futures takes a more-than-human approach in designing the computational model and a simulation platform. The notion of more-than-human bodies was constructed as a strong concept to explore alternative modes of making sense of and acting upon data toward more-than-human forest governance. The designed interface enables users to navigate the forest data across diverse temporal, spatial, and agential scales, thereby urging policymakers, urban planners, and citizens to reimagine healthier futures for us-with-the-forest. ... Read more

Nowadays, children are growing up in a highly unstable world. In our popular, shared narrative, ‘the future’ seems to have become a synonym for socioeconomic crisis and environmental disaster. In the hugely globalized and intercommunicated reality we live in, this is a story that children can hardly stay oblivious to. A European Union-wide survey showed that 1 in 10 young people between the ages of 11-17 experience mental health issues, with fear of the future being cited as one of their main worries (ChildFund Alliance et al., 2021). “What are you going to do when you are older?” The questions we ask children have become much heavier in recent times, as uncertainty renders their future more opaque than ever.
This graduation project started from a very broad inquiry: how can we help children realize the power they have over what the future will be like, through a museum experience? In other words, how can we invite children to speculate about futures in a way that is empowering for them? These questions were posed by Nieuwe Instituut, the museum for architecture, design and digital culture of Rotterdam; they represent the ultimate goal of the Co-Learning Expo, which is currently in its early stages of development.
This project’s goal was to provide design guidance on how to engage children in speculation about futures through an empowering, transformative museum experience.
In order to do this, literature on futures, children’s development, children’s empowerment and participation in museums was reviewed, as well as case studies of cultural institutions who have co-designed exhibitions or other experiences with children. This allowed for a better understanding of the context that the Co-Learning Expo is seeking to fit into, and to position it as a co-designed participatory exhibition. To gain insight on how participation and futuring are approached in the field of design, several methodologies were looked into, such as Participatory Design, Speculative Design and Context Mapping.
To truly grasp what children’s perceptions and attitudes towards the future are, participatory, generative activities were carried out with them. Additionally, parents and a teacher were interviewed, in order to get adults’ perspectives as well.
The insights gained in the research phase of this project were translated into design requirements for the design of empowering museum experiences for children regarding futures. In order to fit the needs of the final users of this guidance — design agency Opperclaes and the Co-Learning department of Nieuwe Instituut — the format of these requirements was improved through three iterative cycles. The result was Designers of the Future, a flexible toolkit meant to support its users during ideation and evaluation processes for museum experiences — such as the Co-Learning Expo. Through its use, the main challenges to be addressed are brough to the table, in order to truly create an empowering experience for children.
The final toolkit was evaluated with design agency Opperclaes and an expert on co-design with children, with positive results overall. Since this project was meant to be a first incursion into this line on inquiry, recommendations for future research as well as next steps are offered. ... Read more

The focus of this project was building shared understandings of future AI systems through design. Based on the literature study on the Explainability of AI, two main gaps were identified: the stakeholder's backgrounds are not accounted for during the design of systems and there is a need for a more holistic approach considering social and technical implications. To address these gaps, the project aimed to move from explainability to building situated understandings that accommodate multiple stakeholders' perspectives and backgrounds.

A criteria for shared understandings was defined based on literature and research: functionality, relatability, situatedness, and expectations. The main design approaches chosen were speculative design and the stack from Freedom Lab. While speculative design, provided immersion and context, the stack facilitated the breakdown and analysis of system layers. A case study on residential shared mobility was chosen as the focus of the project. The stakeholders included a real estate company, municipality officials, a transport provider, and behavioral and technology researchers. The goal was to bring tensions and challenges within the system to the surface and establish a shared understanding among the stakeholders. The project involved seven participants, including direct stakeholders and external individuals, for critical discussions. The participants were interviewed to understand their current understanding, backgrounds, and future visions of the system. Insights from the interviews revealed different interpretations of shared mobility, varying stakeholder priorities, and the challenges related to behavior change and technology implementation.

Four speculative artifacts were designed to surface tensions in the system. These artifacts represented future objects related to shared mobility. The participants interacted with the objects individually, followed by group discussions to explore the implications and challenges. The stack from FreedomLab was used to collect ideas and facilitate group discussions. The sessions aimed to sensitize participants to the case study, encourage their active involvement and gather their perspectives and reflections. Overall, the fostering of shared understandings of future AI systems was sought by the project through the consideration of stakeholder backgrounds, the employment of design methodologies, and the addressing of social and technical implications. The project helped shed light on three aspects. The case study of residential shared mobility, how an ideal system can be achieved, and the role of different stakeholders in this future. Reflection on the process of using speculative design and stack in combination to support each other. Finally insight into shared understandings as an approach to explainability.

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The project aims to encourage "young-older people" to age resourcefully. Although they are better at appropriating artefacts, technologies, and other people available around them to solve challenges as they age, the current "smart products" for those people do not allow them to do so because of their use scenarios rigidly prescribed. To challenge this situation, the graduation project seeks to design Connected Resources, artefacts with internet connection to support older people's inherent abilities of resourcefulness. The project involves two studies to find out design guidelines to design for resourcefulness with Research through Design approach.
The first study addresses artefactual dimensions of openness necessary to support resourcefulness. It reveals while some dimensions, such as interfaces to expand capability and accessibility of knowledge, need to open; other dimensions, such as newness, signifiers, and structural simplicity, are required to close for giving artefacts familiarity and an entry point to explore personal adaptations.
The second study approaches a variety of uses in which a workshop with older people using working prototypes of Connected Resources takes place. They imagine seven use scenarios of Connected
Resources in their everyday practices, resulting in identifying six dimensions of the variety of uses, e.g., use in both fixed and mobile space, use with both user-generated content and crowed-generated content.
With these design guidelines, the final Connected Resources are designed: the four combinable objects, which have different digital and physical capabilities, and the online platform, which encourages older people to learn each other's strategies to find new uses. They are designed with the principle of simplicity, familiarity, and playfulness to fit into older people’s everyday practices found through these studies.
The project reflects knowledge gained in the Research through Design and closes the thesis addressing directions for future work. ... Read more