Rigorosum / PhD Defense Haoyi Chen, MA

MATERIA – Rewriting Ulva through Design Systems
19.08.2025 15:00 Synthetic Landscape Lab – online Zoom
When green tides blanket Qingdao's coast, are they disasters- or messages from a system in flux? This thesis interprets them as metabolic events, calling for MATERIA to be reimagined as a living, negotiating intelligence. In response, a design system transforms this algae-from waste to programmable biopolymers -through biological and artificial intelligence. These materials generate bio-colonizing morphologies, scaling from wearables to urban landscapes. This marks a shiff from designing objects to designing metabolisms where matter becomes a medium for civic action and ecological renewal in the post human era.
PhD Defense Committee :
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Univ.-Prof. Dr. Claudia Pasquero (Synthetic Landscape Lab, University of Innsbruck
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Dr. Marco Poletto (Synthetic Landscape Lab, University of Innsbruck/ ecologieStudio)
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Univ.-Prof. Mag. Kristina Schinegger (i.sd, University of Innsbruck)
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Univ.-Prof. Mag. Stefan Rutzinger (i.sd, University of Innsbruck)
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Prof. Dr. Ines Weizman (Royal College of Art, London)
PhD Defense Guests:
- Assoc. Prof. Dr. Roberto Naboni (SDU CREATE, University of Southern Denmark)
- Dr. Theodore Spyropoules (DRL, AA School London)