Where: Strijp-S area, Klokgebouw | B3, Klokgebouw 50 , 5617 AB| Eindhoven, The Netherlands
When: 18-26 October 2025
What: Exhibition
Joint exhibition between Aalto University Bioinnovation Center and CHEMARTS on bio-based materials.
Engaging creativity and experimentation across generations and disciplines towards bio-based and circular material solutions.
This exhibition brings together diverse generations, ideas, and research-based solutions, united in the pursuit of a more sustainable and creative material future, with an educational focus that highlights the research and learning from Aalto University Bioinnovation Center and CHEMARTS from Finland
Read more on the DDW website.
Team
Susanna Ahola, Curator
Anna van der Lei, Curator
Great Isola, Curator
Opening times and access
The exhibition is open 11:00 – 18:00. Access with a DDW Ticket.
Towards a positive change
Do you know where your materials come from? Are you aware of their afterlife?
Global material consumption is unsustainable and requires immediate change. Innovative solutions are essential, and bio-based materials sourced from renewable resources, waste streams, and by-products offer a promising approach.
Creative experimentation, collaboration, and maintaining a proactive mindset will drive a positive change. Everyone can contribute, no matter how small their actions seem. We can – and should – engage everyone in this change.
This exhibition brings together diverse generations, ideas, and innovations, united in the pursuit of a more sustainable and creative material future, with an educational focus that highlights the research and learning from Aalto University Bioinnovation Center and CHEMARTS.
Children and youth
A newly published bio-based material cookbook is featured, aiming to make Aalto University’s research more accessible to younger generations. Aalto University has collaborated with two Finnish arts schools, Espoo School of Art and Forssa Art School. The Marvelous Materials Installation showcases miniature buildings filled with bio-based objects made by children, highlighting their creativity. Visitors can walk through these mini structures designed by Aalto University architecture students, and a video of kids making materials will be displayed.
Student projects
Besides the Marvelous Materials Installation there will be works on display from CHEMARTS and Bioinnovation Center students. Bachelor’s and Master’s students take an explorative and playful approach to early-stage materials research in CHEMARTS. Experimentation and collaboration encourage new perspectives, with promising results evolving into research projects or business ideas.
Aalto University Bioinnovation Center’s interdisciplinary research accelerates the transition to a circular economy and bioeconomy. Addressing challenges from technology, design, and business perspectives, the center creates opportunities for sustainable growth in Finland.
Exhibition contact
susanna.ahola@aalto.fi
Exhibited work
Sahar Babaeipour, Doctoral Researcher
Project team: Professor Monika Österberg (Chemistry), Professor Pekka Oinas (Chemistry)
Collaborators: Professor Julien Bras and lecturer Denis Curtil, Grenoble INP-Pagora, France
Project type: Basic and applied research
Plastic food trays are difficult to recycle, and upcoming EU packaging regulations require new solutions. 3D-formed fiber trays are a promising alternative, but they lack the strong water and oil barriers needed to compete with plastics. Traditionally, PFAS coatings have been used for this purpose, but these chemicals are now banned due to their persistence in the environment. In this research, we developed coatings based on microfibrillated cellulose and lignin, two of the most abundant natural polymers. These coatings provide an excellent barrier against moisture and grease while keeping the packaging fully recyclable. Applications include fast-food trays, meat packaging, and modified atmosphere trays.
Laureen Mahler, Doctoral Researcher
Project team: Professor Masood Masoodian (Design), Professor Jarkko Niiranen (Civil Engineering), Senior University Lecturer Kirsi Peltonen (Mathematics)
Collaborators: Wood foam from Woamy Oy
Project type: Basic research
Can the future of packaging be functional, responsible, and beautiful? These boxes have two layers: nettle on the surface and compressed wood foam on the inside. Long, resilient nettle fibers create a strong paper for folding, while the wood foam provides added protection. The origami construction uses no adhesives or chemicals, resulting in structures that are customizable, reusable, and biodegradable. The boxes were produced as part of the Cellugami Project, which combines design, materials science, and mathematics to investigate origami as a method of reimagining packaging materials. The project is part of Aalto University’s Bioinnovation Center.
Elise Piquemal, Doctoral Researcher
Project team: Professor Kirsi Niinimäki (Design), Professor Delia Dumitrescu (Design), University of Borås, Sweden
Project type: Basic research
Hold the line is a hand-weaving project that translates historical silk techniques to fit under contemporary conditions. Developed as a discursive design experiment
within a collective weaving workshop, it speculates on how figured silks might still be hand-made today: to what extent tools can be adapted, skills re-learned, and materials cared for in order to sustain the practice. Each part of the textile functions as a site of inquiry, where technical heritage is tested against present constraints and possibilities. The different parts of the textile register negotiations between inherited skills and current resources, carrying traces of both continuity and change. Thus, the project positions silk hand-weaving techniques and embodied skills as repositories of knowledge, questioning resources in textile heritage while opening
pathways for cultural innovation.
Sofia Guridi, Doctoral Researcher
Project team: Professor Kirsi Niinimäki (Design), Professor Jaana Vapaavuori (Chemistry), Professor Yu Xiao (Electrical Engineering), Dr. Emmi Pouta (Design)
Project type: Basic research
This research explores renewable, biodegradable alternatives to metals and fossil-based plastics in electronic textiles.
Greta Isola, Marvelous Materials author
Project type: Marvelous Materials Experiment
Patterns matter is an artistic approach on textures and patterns in bio-based materials. The project showcases materials from the Marvelous Materials cookbook, featuring a variety of surface patterns and textures. It highlights the potential of printmaking and the repetition of relief on bio-based materials from the book. Repeating the same pattern on different materials reveals unique details that emerge based on the properties of each material.
Krista Virtanen, Master student
Project team: Professor Monika Österberg (Chemistry), Professor Pekka Oinas (Chemistry)
Project support: CHEMARTS teaching team
From laboratory to garment is part of the master’s thesis fashion collection Grey Market. Change, decompose, and regenerate. The work explores future bio-based materials through artistic transformation into wearable forms. A jacket is crafted from paper biofilm, made of pectin, glycerol, agar and charcoal drawings. Samples are experiments with “second skin” materials that present renewable alternatives to fossil-based textiles.
Maike Panz, Master’s student
Project type: CHEMARTS Project course
Project support: CHEMARTS teaching team
Woolen whispers explores wool as both a material and a metaphor – questioning how our perception of it changes through process, context, and cultural meaning. Working with coarse, undervalued wool, I experimented with processes that shifted my perception – raw fibers seemed precious, grinding into dust violent, while extruding revealed new potential. These explorations led me to two compostable, recyclable masks inspired by Krampus folklore – they confront the viewer with the often forgotten animal behind the wool and reverse the power dynamics. By shifting wool’s narrative from waste to expressive medium, the masks encourage reflection,
responsibility, and our relationship with non-human life.
Hana Rehorcíková, Master student
Project type: Master’s thesis
Project support: Aalto ARTS professor Julia Lohmann (Supervisor), Lecturer Anna van der Lei (Advisor), Professor Barbara Pollini (Advisor), Aalto CHEM professors Tapani Vuorinen and Mark Hughes, Technical staff members Christian Orassaari and Noora Lukkarinen
Reedboards is an interdisciplinary project that transforms common reed, once mainly used for thatching, into high-performance, CO2-storing, biodegradable panels. The material is created through a binderless process in which reed fibers are mechanically refined into a natural gel that, when combined with ground particles, self-binds during hot pressing. This invention addresses the ecological challenge of eutrophication in the Baltic Sea, where nutrient overload drives reed overgrowth and disrupts ecosystems. Responsible harvesting removes excess phosphorus, nitrogen, and carbon while fostering biodiversity and cleaner waters. Reedboards
demonstrate how regenerative design can turn a problematic plant into valuable circular materials.
Anna van der Lei, University Lecturer and Elizaveta Lingonberg, CHEMARTS Alumni
Project type: CHEMARTS material exploration
Project Support: CHEMARTS Lab, Professor Fredrik Gröndahl Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm
AlgaeBag is produced from the by-product from the Nordic seafarm in Sweden where seaweed is grown on ropes for a more regenerative approach to seaweed farming.
The production process leaves a fine powder as a waste stream. In this project the by-product is used to produce a bio based leather like algae material. The material
research is conducted at CHEMARTS lab at Aalto University.
Iines Jakovlev, CHEMARTS Alumni
Project type: Marvelous Materials Experiment
Forest Inhabitants is inspired by a recipe from the Marvelous Materials cookbook. Spruce and larch cones are used to create a sculptural bear head. The cones, harvested from the forest, are arranged to form a textured surface of overlapping scales that play with light and shadow. This project explores the aesthetic and functional potential of natural materials from Finnish forests.