Coloniae embraces the concept of human-plant relationships by seeking a dialogue between objects and plants. Featuring perforated metal vases and tables, the series allows plants to climb and colonize, transforming furniture into hybrid organisms that become contained -as opposed to containing, plants.

The chapter chronicles and reflects on the processes and the meanings behind GeoMerce, a speculative design project that revolves around the notion of phytomining. The work examines the design of Geomerce’s network of professionals, ranging from biologists, technologists, financial advisors, and how that enabled an exchange of voices and expertise.

Objects Agents is a 16-week speculative and interaction design course. Students design electronic objects that behave unpredictably when interacting with others (humans and otherwise), becoming ‘objects with sociology’. The course involves researching components, imagining speculative networks, hands-on prototyping and interaction design principles.

Building on laboratory procedures, the Technofossils series explores a leaf clearing process using light. By introducing resin, cleared leaves are trapped into polymeric matter and illuminated from below. Each numbered element is the visible-invisible representation of a story, a forest-laboratory artefact of vegetal and artificial nature.

Degaussed North reimagines the concept of navigation in hyper-connected environments. Rather than guiding users to familiar destinations, it acts as a digital compass that leads them to areas with minimal interference, encouraging exploration of untouched, quiet spaces, the desire for solitude and escape from connectivity.

The paper explores the issue of participation in multispecies networks. It examines Geomerce and Vegetal Rescuers— design works that merge plant research with ethnographies on vegetal agency in contaminated landscapes. By tracking plants’ metabolic processes, it shows how weeds can co-create unexpected more-than-human worlds.

Solar Futures explores situated design as a method for conducting desert fieldwork, exploring local materials and processes, and the ecological and socio-cultural context in which they exist or take place. Participants were asked to design portable, solar‑powered cooking experiences or tools that could embody regenerative, circular, and situated design principles.

As part of BIO25, the research investigated the hyperaccumulator plant Thlaspi praecox, an endemic species that grows in Slovenja, within the Mežica Valley area. Activies involves laboratory work, on site field-work, and public engagement activities in the gallery, to explore the plant’ role in environmental and cultural remediation.

Geomerce’s landing at NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf explored the complex interactions between endemic ecotypes of Arabidopsis halleri and a contaminated site in North-Rhine-Westphalia, shedding light on how encounters between people and hyperaccumulating flora become formed through lab, field, and exhibit work.

GeoMerce draws a scenario in which agriculture blurs with finance and farming decisions are made according to both financial changes and scientific progress. By employing ISEs, the metal absorption process of hyperaccumulators is tracked and crossed with real-time data from the London Metal Exchange, resulting in multiple speculative visualizations and printed media.

Trap Light proposes a radical new approach to lighting design. By utilising photoluminescent pigments to capture escaping light, blown Murano glass become, both the shade and light source, emitting, absorbing, and re-emitting light. A thirty-minutes ‘charge’ of recycled light provides up to 8 hours of ambient lighting.

Building on design activism and agricultural drone technologies, Vegetal Rescuers engages hyperaccumulators in processes of cultural and environmental healing. By growing on territories of political disputation, the work challenges human control and prompts to rethink our relationship with contaminated landscapes.

Lenses provides a visual representation to the metal accumulation process of specific plants species. Multiple are cleared through a chemical laboratory process, to visualize their vascular lymphatic system, and casted into clear resin to become part of an archive.

The paper introduces a transdisciplinary methodology based on the tactic of “following” plant collectives. Building on post-humanism theories, sustainability is addressed as the implementation of a design attitude that involves learning by cultivating relations of multispecies reciprocity.

Part of the exhibition “White Flag”, Asylum Sea(k) explores the Mediterranean as a space of migration, connection, and tension. The work reflects on major migratory flows since 2012, symbolizing the complex dynamics between nations of departure and arrival, and representing contradictions between hope, borders, and the human drama surrounding asylum-seekers.

The project explores sustainable energy through alternative culinary practices, envisioning a new cooking method based on stored thermal energy. By heating a blend of sodium and potassium nitrates above 120°C, the generated heat is retained for hours, enabling cooking beyond daylight and prompting reflection on energy use and potential futures for solar cuisine.

Design Destinations is an exhibit by MAXXI, exploring the experiences of seven Italian designers between Italy and the Netherlands. Perspectives contrasts Italian and Dutch design, drawing on early Renaissance art. Using mirrors and LEDs, it shows how perspective influences light, creating objects with multiple vanishing points where perspective is both subject and medium.

Part of the Another Terra exhibit, Actus Fidei explores faith through the symbolism of fire, re-imagining the matchstick as a vessel for collective prayers. Engraved linden wood boards hold verses from different sacred texts and personal prayers. By burning, they become offerings of universal hope, uniting diverse beliefs into a shared expression of renewal and humanity’s collective soul.

Agricola is a series of lights exploring the ever-changing nature of agricultural byproducts. Made from locally produced agricultural waste and bound with natural latex, the series highlights the value of seasonal colors, revealing environmental stories through form, texture, and shifting shades.

Trace reinterprets the concept proposed with Trap Light, focusing on the use of materials capable of recycling outdoor light sources. Using photoluminescent pigments in combination with silicons, hand-made photoluminescent skins are produced to convert the unseen spectrum of sun energy into visible light.

The project envisions a speculative future where the planet’s resources are no longer sufficient to meet our demands, and self-generated energy production methods emerge as the main viable approach. In such post-industrial context, even the simplest of electric devices is questioned: how much physical effort does it take to power up a light bulb?

Urban Buds repurposes neglected urban spaces into shared community gardens, fostering social connection through food cultivation. Portable, soil-filled units act as mobile gardens, reflecting cultural identities and traditions. First adopted in Eindhoven, the project redefines gardening as a shared act of belonging and storytelling

The Pedalator is the second artifct of the Unplugged series. The project envisions a speculative future where the planet’s resources are no longer sufficient to meet our demands. In such post-industrial context, even the simplest of electric devices is questioned: how much physical effort does it take to power up a light bulb?

SMnS is a series of door handles that aims at transforming doors into communication means. Inspired by the intimacy of the ‘message-in-the-bottle’ and rejecting fast-communication, the project wishes to encourage human connection and meaningful interaction in a digital world.

Bau!Haus is a reflection on what happens around a chair—not just on top, but also behind, at its sides, and underneath. Designed as an interactive element for both humans and dogs, the chair allows people to sit while simultaneously inviting their animals to walk under and rest beneath it.