where climate action meets the future of design

Tag: biomaterials

Bojana Nikitovic

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Bojana Nikitović’s work in costume design spans theatre, opera, ballet, and film.

She graduated as Valedictorian from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade in 1989 and began her career in theatre, designing costumes for more than 100 productions, including productions of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Dickens, and Molière. Her contribution to the performing arts has been recognised with numerous awards, including an EMMY NOMINATION for Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes for her work in Dune Prophecy, a winner of the Costume Designers Guild Awards for Excellence in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Television for her work in Dune Prophecy, four Sterija Awards, two Ardalion Awards, and the Grand International Award for Spectacle Design at the YUSTAT Biennial.

Since 2001, she has worked internationally, collaborating with Academy Award-winning costume designer Milena Canonero on films such as The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Marie Antoinette, and The Wolfman. Her film credits include Coriolanus, A Good Day to Die Hard, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, and numerous other international productions.

Richard van der Laken

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Laken practice advocates for designers’ responsibility to engage with societal issues and contribute to systemic change.

Richard van der Laken is a designer and creative director, and co-founder of the international platform What Design Can Do (WDCD). Through WDCD, he has led numerous campaigns, conferences, and design challenges that bring together multidisciplinary communities to rethink the role of creativity in urgent global challenges such as climate change, inequality, migration, and the transition to circular systems.

Recently, he founded Laecken, a contemporary fashion label that explores men’s self-expression through clothing, accessories, and textiles. Rooted in global craft traditions from regions such as Mexico, Japan, Ghana and India, the brand draws on geometric simplicity and the traditional menswear.

Henriëtte Waal

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Artist and designer known for her interdisciplinary work in artistic research, environmental design, and community engagement.

She is the artistic leader of Veenweide Atelier and the co-founder of Atelier LUMA, LUMA Arles’ biodesign lab dedicated to bioregional practices and material engineering. Henriëtte has led fieldwork in Mediterranean wetlands, collaborating with remote wetland communities from Southern Europe, Africa, and West Asia. Her work spans co-fabrication systems for beverages, footwear, colors, crafts, and spaces, as part of an ongoing search for new ecosocial balance. Her projects have been exhibited internationally.

In her recent book Water Works (Waal & Driessen, 2025), she outlines ecosocial design as a method, in which the relationship between humans, ecology, and systems is central. The book positions water infrastructures as socio-ecological systems that require new forms of ecological imagination, storytelling, and alliances between human and non-human actors. 

Landless Food

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With many of our staple foods having disappeared due to the impacts of climate change, how will we find ways to reconnect with the experience of flavour?

Landless Food is a speculative design project that places us in the year 2050 to ask salient questions about how we will sustain ourselves as a species.

How will the ways in which we pursue joyful food experiences change?⁠ Through her research, project creator Malu Lücking has discovered species of microalgae that can provide us glimpses of flavours past, like crab or prawn, while presenting entirely new flavours as well.⁠

Natasa Perkovic

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BLENDING AESTHETICS, INNOVATION AND A DEEP CONNECTION TO NATURE IN HER DESIGN PRACTICE.

Born in Sarajevo into a family in which her father and grandfather worked for the well- known Yugoslav-era wood industry, SIPAD, Natasa grew up surrounded by the scent of wood samples and an appreciation for wood crafts and industry. Though she once found furniture design uninspiring, her perspective shifted after studying Product Design at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Sarajevo and gaining international experience.

Returning to Sarajevo in the early 2000s, she began teaching at her alma mater and built her design practice in a country still recovering from war and industrial decline. As the country’s furniture sector moved from exporting raw materials to developing its own products, Natasa established her studio and began collaborating with local manufacturers.

Today, she is a leading voice in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s design revival, dedicated to education, regional collaboration, and shaping a bold, innovative and sustainable design culture.

Goran Milic

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Expert in wood science and technology, with a focus on sustainable wood processing and hydrothermal treatments.

Dr. Goran Milic is a distinguished academic and researcher in the field of wood science. He earned his doctoral degree from the Faculty of Forestry, University of Belgrade, where he is currently teaching in the Department of Wood Science and Technology.

His expertise lies in primary wood processing, with a special focus on hydrothermal wood treatments such as drying, steaming, and thermal modification. His academic journey has taken him across Europe, enhancing his research through visits and collaborations in Austria, Germany, Finland, and Slovenia.

Beyond academia, Dr. Milic is a consultant for leading companies in the wood industry, providing expertise in wood technologies and serving as a court expert in wood technology cases. His ongoing research focuses on using the wood steaming condensate as a sustainable dye in industrial textile production.

Daniel Podmirseg

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Committed to bringing food production back into daily urban life.

Daniel is an architect by training with a strong interdisciplinary background in urban innovation and sustainable design. Educated in Vienna, he studied at the University of Technology, the University of Applied Arts, and the Academy of Fine Arts, where he presented his diploma project on Vertical Farming for London in 2008. Driven by a passion for integrating architecture with ecological and energy-efficient solutions, he pursued a doctorate in technical sciences at Graz University of Technology. His doctoral research, conducted at the Institute for Buildings and Energy, explored the Contribution of Vertical Farms to Increasing the Overall Energy Efficiency of Cities.

Daniel thrives outside of his comfort zone, constantly learning and pushing boundaries through multidisciplinary collaborations. His work reflects a commitment to bringing food production back into daily urban life while reimagining cities as ecosystems that balance innovation, sustainability, and quality of life.