dutch design week 2020

Eggshell Ceramic is a circular material derived from discarded eggshells. A biodegradable material with many advantageous properties. Eggshells contain calcium carbonate, a nutrient for human, animals and plants. These harmless properties can make it a good replacement for single use products.

10 billion eggs a year are produced in the Netherlands, which makes the country the largest egg exporter in the world. An egg produces a valuable material which is often seen as waste; his shell. Luckily not all 10 billion eggshells are wasted, it’s often used as soil improver in agriculture. ‘EggShell Ceramic’ is a circular material derived from this industry to show new possibilities with this material. This project shows that we can also use the material one more time before it is given back to nature. Last year Laura participated at the Material Designers (MADE) workshop in Barcelona. During this workshop she developed a biodegradable but strong material out of eggshells which can be a sustainable replacement for single use products. The material has the look of ceramics but the weight of cardboard, which makes it a versatile material. At the end of its life, it still can be used for agriculture. The project creates an extra “dot” in this materials lifecycle. The discarded eggshells are coming from a Dutch chicken farm that sells its eggs to supermarkets. Many of those eggs are broken in the packaging process, which provide waste and useless material for them.

Investigation on potential use of waste streams of natural stones in ceramics.
Every year a quarry of natural stones has at least 600.000 kg of waste material. Each ceramic industry has at least 1.000 kg of overspray material per year. These waste streams have very good properties and could be used as a source of valuable minerals for further application in ceramic glaze.

Studio Mixtura
Daria Biryukova is a design alchemist with a fascination to experiment with waste and secondary raw materials. With her Studio Mixtura she constantly searches for smart, sustainable and beautiful solutions for products and production processes, particularly in the field of materials. Her work is characterized by material experiments, in-depth research and a love for colour and traditional crafts.

When I was visiting the online dutch design week, I noticed that a lot of the designers always first introduce their work. How did they came up with the idea?, what triggered them? Why is it that they chose to use a certain material? Then they always show pictures of their process, when doing that the picture always has one background colour so the work really stands out. There is most of the time one picture with everything on it and a couple of picture that are zoomed in on a certain element or work.

There are also photos or a video of how you use the product, how does it work and how people are going to use it.

Mostly they also choose a title to present their work. They use a title that really suits the work or a title that is mysterious in a way that people are curious to see what the project is about.
In the photographs you can sometimes find the ones that failed to and what they did to come to the better outcome.

I really like the two works above.
Firstly, I really like the eggshell ceramic, because normally eggshells are thrown away. But now she found out a way to recycle it into a product. And I really like that although it is a product to throw away again, it is re-used. And that is the side of product design I really like.
Secondly, I really liked the crystal growth project, actually because of the same reason. They use waste streams of natural stones in ceramics.