about
Hello, my name is Maria. This page is a prototype for my bachelor thesis in industrial design. It serves as an example and is not functional in itself. Feel free to click through!
This is a site for all designers and makers
who are searching for sustainable materials or want to share their knowledge.
Offer, buy, ask, inform and create something new.
In our ever-expanding society with its ever-growing consumption, resources are becoming ever scarcer. On the other hand, the waste that we produce, accumulate and leave unused is becoming more and more. But waste can also be thought of as a resource, according to the motto "Waste is just a name".
Many people besides myself have had similar thoughts. Designers fill entire books, such as "Radical matter: Rethinking Materials for a Sustainable Future" by Kate Franklin, "Wasted: When Trash becomes Treasure" by Katie Treggiden or "Why Materials Matter: Responsible Design for a Better World" by Seetal Solanki with their ideas on how to use waste. Nevertheless, these "new" materials do not find their way into the collective repertoire. They usually remain with their creators and their projects, are presented and examined at exhibitions and then slowly disappear from the scene. Yet the common goal of a new design generation striving for sustainability should be to make the knowledge of the individual available to all. The process of constantly developing and researching materials from waste, which in the end remain without access, decelerates the progress towards a sustainable and responsible future.
We must not always start from scratch, but build on each other's ideas and thus bring about change more quickly. The big problem with collective knowledge or open-source platforms, however, is the understandable desire for fair remuneration for one's own work. So you need a financial incentive so that the developers share their own innovations. So there has to be trade! But how do you distribute the sustainable materials?
Every DIY store offers an obvious concept. Materials are sold in the form of semi-finished products - i.e. boards, rods, tubes or yard goods - the makers are paid and the buyers get blanks from which they can realise their ideas.
In order to achieve the greatest possible accessibility and to open up the market to the entire global target group, I have not designed a local DIY market but an online marketplace. Designers, material researchers and others can offer their materials from waste in the form of semi-finished products and interested people can get information, explore possibilities and buy materials for their projects.