MFA Thesis: Low-Impact Production with Bioplastic Composites

project overview

In this project, I build a chair from scratch using natural and recycled materials in a process that is as free from petroleum as possible. This was an eight-month project performed for my 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibition at the University of Notre Dame.

This project proposes a low-impact model of production and uses renewable, locally sourced bio-composites. Many of our furnishings and modern building materials are designed to be made in high volume and as cheaply as possible. This has led to an endless flow of petroleum-derived plastics, epoxy-soaked timber, and toxic adhesives that are impossible to reuse or recycle. The popularity of home renovations and imported fast-furniture in our consumerist culture ensures this direct-to-landfill trend will endure. This project seeks to disrupt this cycle by re-localizing manufacturing and bringing a renewed interest in place, purpose, and materiality to a new line of products.

Bioplastics blended with agricultural waste fibers (native grasses, wheat straw, natural dyes) yield materials with unique aesthetics while augmenting properties and improving their sustainability. In this project, I design and fabricate a chair that has an ultra-low carbon footprint and is free from petroleum and dangerous airborne chemicals, formaldehyde, chlorine, and phthalates. Modern digital fabrication technologies are leveraged to create customizable mold inserts and precision sheets, profiles, and patterns. Through the versatility, strength, and beauty of these materials, the chair will demonstrate the rich possibilities of low-carbon production.

Chair Prototyping and Fabrication Video:

Exhibition Photos:

---

Research and Design Process

For my thesis project, I wanted to wade out of the conceptual space and reckon with our modern means of production. The goal of this project was not to build a chair. This was about embarking on a self-directed journey to understand the challenges of prototyping with sustainable alternatives to conventional manufacturing methods.

Background

It cannot be understated how much we rely on fossil fuels - from plastic formulations to adhesives, paints and lacquers, packaging, and the vast amount of fuel that supports global trade. Plastics may be used only for a short time but take hundreds of years to break down, infiltrating our planetary systems. Our use of these materials is responsible for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is projected to triple in just over seventeen years.

This extractive relationship with resources is not exclusive to plastics. Timber, whose demand is already skyrocketing, will be driven even higher as it is seen as the low-carbon alternative in the race to curb emissions by 2050, the international initiative called Net Zero. This timber needs to come from somewhere, and currently just 13% of global forests are sustainably managed. Old growth forests are being converted to monocultures like eucalyptus, bamboo, rubberwood, and spruce, privatizing these once biodiverse regions, and pushing out workers who made a living from the land for generations.

Guided by numerous case studies and the sustainability scholars David Orr, William McDonough and Daniel Wahl, I’ve questioned whether production can be productive? More specifically, can the fabrication of a product support the collection of waste materials, share economic opportunity, and fund the growth of plants that improve ecological resilience. 

In the fall semester, I created and tested over a hundred samples of bioplastic composite materials. Bioplastics are derived from renewable resources, rather than petroleum, and break down into soil components and water. When blended with a fiber or an aggregate, it becomes a composite, possessing augmented properties, aesthetics, and cost. 

Wanting to see this process through from start to finish, I grew my own plot of prairie grasses and cereal crops over the summer. I harvested in October, leaving ground cover to shelter the soil from the winter sun, reduce erosion, and provide overwintering habitat for wildlife. I bundled the fiber in stooks, an ancient technique for drying grain in the sun, instead of kilns.

Three of these materials show promise, and with further testing, may be commercialized. Compression-molded ground straw blended with a bioplastic paste targets conventional OSB, MDF, and plywood; formed fabric panels laminated with bio-resin targets conventional fiberglass and elastomers; and sugarcane PLA blended with wheat, hemp, or flax powder targets conventional injection-molded plastic. These composites are free from petroleum ingredients and biodegrade with long-term exposure to moisture.

Design Process

My concepts for the chair made use of each molding process and showcased their materiality. With digital fabrication, I could achieve contemporary, high precision forms. The final design is fashioned as a task chair for public spaces, like schools or conference halls. It has a contoured seat with lumbar support for upright posture and a gentle lean.

The chair seat is a laminated panel of fabrics that are impregnated with a gelatin-based bio-resin. The structure is cut from ¾” thick sheet of ground straw and a bioplastic glue made from corn starch and glycerin. Homemade bioplastics are blended with local agricultural fiber and natural dyes to yield the chair’s seat, legs, trusses, and brackets, representing 98.2% of the chair’s mass. The rest is composed of metal hardware, allowing the chair to be repaired and packed flat.

Lasercut Leg Pattern: The Chair’s legs and trusses were designed to be cut from a single 24” x 16” Straw-Board. One 4’ x 8’ sheet could yield the base for twelve chairs. All of the scrap is reground for later use.

Life Cycle Assessment / Implications

For an objective evaluation of how “sustainable” this chair is, I’ve used the IDSA’s Okala Method to perform a life cycle assessment of this chair against two common competitors. This chair’s footprint is roughly half of an aluminum and plastic chair, and a third of one that is plated steel and fiberglass.

 In working on this project over the last eight months, I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface and am excited to see where this practice goes next. While it isn’t easy, fabricating with regionally produced, natural materials can dramatically lower the environmental footprint of our goods and supply chains, and demonstrate that materials not derived from petroleum can be viable and attractive alternatives.

RV2035: Escape Into Nature

In an increasingly urban future punctuated by the stresses of congestion, severe weather events, and the occasional pandemic, natural experiences will become ever more necessary - to connect, reflect, grow, and heal. 

Some will seek a more resilient and empowering lifestyle, unshackled from skyrocketing costs of living and aging infrastructures that rely on obsolete, ecologically-disruptive fuels and technologies. A mobile lifestyle will become more desirable and commonplace, for short-term escapes or for years at a time. These “Nomads” will require mastery of their resources and more efficient modes of travel, moving in and out of communities as their needs and values change. 

This project proposes a design for a near-future towable trailer that loves nature back. It targets a younger, more urban customer than the traditional RV industry, providing an accessible outdoor retreat and escape from high-consumption behaviors. It has been designed for rapid setup / takedown, resource stewardship, and low environmental impact.

In the following storyboard, I invite you to join these Nomads on one of their journeys with Model #2035.

---

Research and Process

To recap a short excerpt from my research, I used a futurecasting framework to look at trends impacting transportation and architecture in the United States. Three themes emerged.

Improved wireless networks and shifting workplace norms have given rise to the digital nomad, a growing trend among young creatives, roadschooling parents, and retirees, even before its acceleration due to COVID. Second, the increasing likelihood of carbon regulation, international competition and public pressure will speed the transition to renewable energy. Thirdly, as a means to retain customer loyalty and spur investment, architects, manufacturers, and developers will need to continually improve their footprints, recovering resources and closing the loop in their production cycles.

I spent the month of March using a variety of research methods, including lit reviews, media from online experts and influencers, and various frameworks for benchmarking trends and on-the-market products. In parallel, I conducted user research with several RV owners and industry professionals. Two themes that surfaced was the desire to make memories, acutely understood by parents with young children. The other in the universal American passion for freedom - which filters into attitudes on travel, education, sense of place, and economics.

To guide my research into the market landscape, I catalogued the six primary shelters for outdoor lodging to see how they compared in financial and environmental costs, and also to get a sense for how long a typical stay they afforded. 

I then mapped their common amenities on the degree of satisfaction among users. High satisfaction or variety in offerings charts highly, neutral means it is not expected or average, and low satisfaction means the quality is poor or the amenity nonexistent. The amenities loosely correlated to basic or physiological needs on the left (buckets like protection and comfort) and more emotional or aspiration needs on the right, like contributors to feelings of empowerment, social bonding or natural harmony. 

This analysis presented a few themes, that cabins, while enormously costly, require little adaptation and training to use. Large RV’s are the most cumbersome and difficult to use, and can affect a sterile environment devoid of natural connection. While easier to use and more mobile, teardrops lack the space for plumbing, basic hygiene, rejuvenation and entertaining. While tents are cheap and have low environmental impact, they fail to satisfy many of our basic needs. However, they do allow for a profound natural experience.

All of this research led me to wonder whether there might be some fertile middle ground. Could a more compelling approach to creature comforts bring out people who don’t camp? Can the RV footprint be reduced while providing better natural connections? And could options for hygiene and socializing be expanded for teardrop trailers?

Inspired by the work of futurist architects like Zaha Hadid and Bjarke Ingels, among others, I began to explore forms that mimicked nature in their function and construction, to enable a mode of living that harmonized with the landscape and its elements.

MYO: Mix Your Own Household Cleaners

Nearly 40% of plastic is used only once, leading to decades of accumulation in landfills and the natural environment. Less visible but equally damaging are the emissions from refining crude oil into plastic, methane released from its decomposition, and fuel burned moving it around the world. When we fill that plastic with millions of gallons of water and ship it to regions where water is in abundance, we are further toxifying our atmosphere and lining the pockets of oil companies.

This concept looks at how we can challenge our consumption behavior around the hidden inefficiencies of household cleaners. System architecture, user experience design, and careful material substitutions are used to remove virgin plastic from the equation and add water at point of use. My work explores how design and responsible service models can lead us toward low-impact consumption and better stewardship of our environment and natural resources.

Introduction

Process

To lower the need for all of this plastic, I wanted to explore a system that would allow you to make your own cleaners. That required doing a deep dive into the chemistry and inherent economics of these liquids. I was able to learn a great deal from various DIY communities online, that knocked off everything from laundry detergent to antibacterial cleaner, using an array of blenders, graters, buckets, long recipes and obscure bulk ingredients.

I needed a method for incorporating this science-y know-how and labor intensive tasks into a form factor that was as convenient as the mass-market alternatives. This meant streamlining the workflow to limit opportunities for user error and dissatisfaction; i.e. tasks such as measuring, pouring, mixing, and dispensing.

I mocked up a prototype that used an old computer fan to spin a magnetic mixer in the same fashion as a common piece of laboratory equipment. This showed some promise as a suds-free method for blending solutions, while being quiet and low profile. Packaging and shipping solid concentrates also provided many environmental advantages over their liquid counterparts.

final design

My proposed solution is an inexpensive system of reusable mixing vessels and concentrated tablets. Adding water at point of use reduces emissions from shipping by more than 95% and eliminates unnecessary single-use plastics.

Customers receive an envelope-sized package in the mail that contains tablets for a few months of cleaning, while the vessels can be either shipped or picked up at local stores. Each vessel is specialized for a cleaning function (pour, spray, pump) and has labeled fill-lines to make refilling measure-free. A customer could also use their own containers, using only the flask vessel and dock for mixing and decanting.

A cardstock liner informs the user of their water and carbon stewardship with each refill, reinforcing their nudge towards good behavior. Natural castile soaps and vegetable dyes compose the tablets, with circles / warm colors denoting those for the body, and triangles / cool colors for cleaners. The cleaner tablets are sized too large to fit into the pump vessel, intended only for solutions that are used on the body.

MYO’s form language draws inspiration from laboratory equipment and the Victorian apothecary. The tapered forms and curvature through the necks enhance grip, while the stoppers lend warmth, richness, and texture. The vessels could be molded from recycled PET, lending durability, a clear façade, and more freedom in its geometry. These would be lighter, safer, and more economically viable to recycle than glass (Indiana, USA, 2020). The stoppers and dock could be made from carved FSC certified domestic hardwoods (oak, walnut), paired with cork gaskets and white compostable bioplastics for the internal components. A magnet could be insert-molded in the spinner, which is safely captured in the threaded two-part vessel design.

Lastly, a label on the bottom of the dock offers instructions for returning the mechanism for service/decommission and recycling the vessels.

Takeaways

This project taught me a few lessons about sustainable product design that I’ll carry into future work.

Most importantly, renewable materials are most appealing when selected for their physical properties (not just aesthetics). Incorporating them will help their economic viability and condition customers to accept them.

Also, the end-of-life of your product must be designed, to guide your customers through the confusing waste stream landscape and towards models of environmentally-beneficial consumption.

Jump VR Helmet

This project is for the new startup Jump by Void veteran James Jensen. Work was performed while at Optimal Design. Full write-up coming soon!

RainBag Catchment System

This is a short charrette project completed for the first semester of my MFA. Full write-up coming soon!

VR Relaxation Vessel

Sensync is a first-of-its-kind interactive experience that brings VR and multi-sensory stimuli together to relax and rejuvenate guests. Through synchronized sight, sound, smell and touch, these virtual journeys respond in real-time to a guest’s biometric data, heightening immersion and nurturing cognitive restoration. Sensync’s founding team selected OD to design and engineer “The Vessel”, the closed-loop environment that drives this technology. After building and testing the first unit in OD’s suburban Chicago headquarters, The Vessel was installed at the Four Seasons Resort in Oahu at Ko Olina.

I served as project manager for a team that spanned four disciplines and contributed as the lead designer during this eight month project.

In designing “The Vessel”, our team needed to position and package a Zero-G bed, host of sensory components, and enough electronics to fill an IT closet.

The form had to be strikingly beautiful, comfortable, and support all body shapes and sizes. The shell’s material needed to be formed with precision, tolerate vibrations and changes in temperature and humidity, support the electronics and weight of the guest, and be finished to the high spec you would find in a luxury spa - all complicated without economies of scale. Even though we were only making one Vessel, the aesthetic would drive the brand’s direction moving forward and greatly influence the downstream engineering efforts.

Lastly, we needed a software platform to allow two-way communication between the sensory hardware and digital experience. To prototype the positions of the sensory components, we used pegboard and PVC to build a scaffold, which allowed our electrical and software engineers opportunity to work on driving the components, wire routing, and building “the bridge” to the VR experience.

The Vessel juxtaposes a pure, shimmering exterior with a black, matte interior. The dark, concave canopy obscures the complexity of the sensory components, hiding much of the tech from the user until the experience is underway. Under CNC-carved architectural foam, an aluminum chassis provides a strong, yet pliable framework for mounting the electronics and isolating the transducers. The VR headset also received custom modifications for audiophile-level acoustics, targeted aromatherapy, respiratory monitors and heart-rate tracking. Even the guest’s entry and exit was considered, with a rising headset mount, programmable ambient lighting and sloped ledges leading onto the mattress.

The Build

Testing

Final Install

5G Concept Phone

In exploring a phone for the 5G market, I wanted to think about what consumers might want in a new device. Having worked on other phones that were driven by spec sheets, I wanted this one to have a bit more personality and lead the development with an identity first.

After some initial exploration, I started digging this notion of a phone that provided a cinematic visual and audio experience. 5G brings with it more data, which will power ever higher resolutions and refresh rates in gaming and movies. Thus, the “Cinema” concept phone was born.

The 5G antennas are positioned on the four sides of the phone facing out, so I needed an architecture scheme that minimized metal on the sides. I’ve always thought it silly that fragile glass is used for the rear face of phones (for the sake of gaining a few tenths of a millimeter in the Z-stack) so I opted instead for a PC rear cover. This allowed me to jog the parting line around the antennas, becoming a signature visual element.

Following the strong media theme, I wanted a powerful camera option for dynamic photography and film-making. I used a three camera scheme in the rear, centrally located, with a steel accent surrounding the subassembly. The cameras combine in pairs for a capable zoom and good performance in low-light conditions. A 3D pattern stamped into the camera bezel plate would further elevate the appearance and tie the modules together, while still offering enough bonding surface for the contact adhesive around the camera glass.

Color matching the anodized aluminum faceplate and the PC rear cover brings a level of playfulness to the design that I really liked. Using the power key as a complimenting color pop provided some fun CMF combinations.

Post-Its, PLA, and Sharpies: My Semester as a Northwestern Professor

This spring I was offered the opportunity to co-teach a class at Northwestern by a former colleague and leapt at the chance. I’ve given lectures and participated in critiques here and there, over the years, but have never contributed to a class from start to finish, so this was uncharted territory for me. The experience was a 10-week roller coaster of twists and turns that left me exhilarated, motivated, and changed for the better. Now that I’ve had a month or so to recover from the whiplash, I thought it high time to do some reflection and share what I’ve learned.

The Details
The class is called “Design Thinking and Doing” and is an elective class open to all undergraduate students on campus. On paper, the class offers students the chance to learn and practice user research methodologies and apply them to develop solutions to real problems in the world around them. A full half of the class is devoted to observing users and making sense of what they see. They learn to conduct studies in the field, reframe problems to perceive them from different angles, and techniques for individual and group brainstorming. In a broader sense, however, the aim is to train students to think differently and give them not only the agency, but confidence, to create. With a full shop, 3D printers and laser cutters at their disposal, they were encouraged to take their ideas off the page and into cardboard, acrylic and PLA. 

What I’ve learned about Teaching
The first thing I learned straight-away is that teaching is a LOT of work! Between preparing content for lectures, class-time, office hours, grading, and commuting from the studio, I would estimate I was putting in an extra 15 hours a week. This would have been even higher, if a curriculum had not already been crafted by my co-teacher Pam over the last few years. Speaking of Pam, I was in awe of her ability to conduct a class. She was just as natural, engaging and coherent in front of 25 students as she is speaking one-on-one. Whether this is a gift or an acquired skill, it was inspiring to observe, and I hope to one day be half as comfortable in front of a class as she.

Most importantly, I learned that teaching is less about the transfer of data as it is about inspiring a new generation. In the first few lectures, I had outlined dozens of details in the readings and pulled lengthy case studies from my portfolio to share, but quickly realized that I was trying to throw lighter fluid on a bunch of candles. I wasn’t going to turn two dozen design novices into sharpie-wielding warriors overnight (this was an afternoon elective class, after all). I think teaching is really about getting students to cultivate their interests and develop them. It doesn’t matter if they miss a detail here and there, as long as they get the big picture.

Choice Architects, Behavioral Nudges, and.....UX?

One of the joys of reading is when you’re able to make an unexpected connection between what’s on the page and what’s going on around you.

I’ve been reading the book “Nudge” by the economist Richard Thaler, and am finding a wealth of parallels between his human-centered approach to behavioral economics and user-centered design. Thaler posits that rather than think of humans as predictable actors governed by logic, they are rather “subject to their own frailties” - meaning that they often act illogically, influenced by emotion, impulse, internal and external pressures. This echoes the preference user-centered design has for observation over interviews and Simon Sinek’s inside-out approach to branding.

Many of us, either through our work or family relationships, are what Thaler calls “choice architects”. These are people that are responsible for presenting options for which others must choose (think parents, merchandisers, or financial advisers). Knowing that humans are thus subject to our own shortcomings, an ethical choice architect has a responsibility to help “nudge” a decision-maker to a desired outcome. For example, picking a healthy meal option or saving for retirement. A nudge refers to subtle manipulations of how (and when) the choices are presented to increase the likelihood that a customer will make the choice that does them the most good.

It is quite a short mental leap to classify designers as choice architects, whether you state our role in marketing, branding, or user-experience. While reading “Nudge”, I’ve been working on a UIUX project and I found myself thinking about nudging users via button placement, color selection, menu types, etc. “How can I help them get it right?” By minimizing a user’s opportunity to err, I could better ensure they reach the end of the flow and achieve an objective. In addition to digital applications, I can see this bring hugely important in service design and business ops.

Beyond just adding a few new terms to my vocabulary, Thaler’s concepts have provided a fascinating take on understanding, guiding, and designing for users in all of their complexities.

The Designers that Streamlined a Country

For my birthday, Laura took me to the “Modern By Design” exhibit at the Chicago History Museum and I was totally captivated. The exhibit showcases the work of Chicago-based industrial and graphic designers of the 30’s and 40’s, spanning a vast array of categories that included advertising, transportation, architecture, interiors, and industrial and consumer goods. While I was wandering from one iconic piece to the next, a few common themes occurred to me…

The first can be seen before you even enter the exhibit. There is a gallery wall at the threshold that has reproductions of design patent drawings. Looking past the swoopy gadgets and gizmos at the names of the inventors, I was surprised to see more than a few duplicates: Scharfenberg, Iannelli, Loewy, Rockola, Holabird, Root each were responsible for numerous patents. After entering the first exhibit, you can see it was the same story in the graphic designers behind CCA, Wrigley, Chrysler, Sears, and the promotions for the World’s Fair of 1933. The same names kept coming up, even as the work spanned from gum to cardboard boxes; from couches to Cubs tickets.

These pioneers bounced from industry to industry, bringing their brand of “progress” to the kitchens, living rooms and offices of America. Root went from designing commercial buildings to sketch out the world’s fastest electric passenger train, the Zephyr. Loewy went from trains to refrigerators, then again to tractors. Iannelli seemed to be everywhere, working on statues for the World’s Fair, corporate headquarters, decorative adornments for kitchen appliances, and the architecture of churches. Armed only with their talent and shared vision of a progressing future, these designers pushed manufacturing, retail and commercial art into territory that represented an entirely new frontier. What allowed these artists to be so successful in ‘cross-training’? I think it had little to do with technique or skill in the traditional sense (though they had this in abundance) and everything to do with their ability to capture the imaginations and spirit of a people.

The second theme struck me as I was a bit deeper in the exhibit. Observing the Schwinn bicycles and Sunbeam Mixers, the tubular modernist furniture and the Radio Flyer wagons, you can see a portfolio of goods emerge that must have looked dramatically different to anything produced before its time. This new aesthetic of windswept forms, rhythmic banding, and mirrored, sparkling surfaces required (and in many ways brought about) entirely new methods of manufacturing. The process of chroming base metals, extruding and bending tubular forms, and producing durable and colorful enamel coatings added new tools to the kits of designers and allowed them to introduce new aesthetics on a mass-market scale. Additionally, the consumer demand for these ‘modernist’ designs must have come from a rejection for the utilitarian or traditional/ornamental designs of the past. Owning one of these futuristic devices must have said something about the sophistication of its owner, not unlike the tech gadgets of today.

This embrace of new production methods and rejection of the visual past means that streamlining holds a definite place in art history and cannot be separated from its timeline. That theme likely can be upheld for any populist artistic trend - a movement’s content is influenced by its place in history. The country had weathered the Great Depression and was yearning for something to lift them back to the prosperity seen in the 20’s. A recovering economy and the US’ growing prominence on the global stage restored an optimism for a future that held opportunity for the working class. To get us there, visual traits such as speed, lightness and efficiency were celebrated. Utilizing new manufacturing methods, this undercurrent of optimism yielded a family of products that are distinctly unique to a late 1930’s America.

Finally, the last trend can be seen in the degree of respect and autonomy that these celebrated designers commanded. While composing most of their bodies of work in Chicago, these “celebrities” moved around the country, recruited by corporations to build teams, launch brands and reinvigorate stagnant ones. They possessed the rare ability to excite consumers the world over. This I found most uplifting and timeless; that even then, nearly 90 years ago, the design industry had the potential to inspire people and create beautiful works of art.