MATERIA FUTURA: Reclaiming Sensory Desire in Bio-Based Materials
SUSTAINABLE INNOVATIONS
Materia Futura is not proposing a new bio-material category, nor a finished commercial textile. What distinguishes the project is its design-led investigation into the emotional and aesthetic dimensions of bio-based materials, an area often sidelined in sustainability discourse. Founded by Alessia Pasquini and Beatriz Sandini, Materia Futura asks a direct question: why are sustainable materials still expected to look raw, muted, or purely functional?
Developed as a design research project in early 2025, Materia Futura explores how biomaterials can engage the senses through shimmer, iridescence, surface depth, and visual movement. Rather than treating these qualities as superficial, the project positions them as critical to human connection and long-term material adoption. Its first outcomes were presented at Dutch Design Week 2025 as part of the exhibition Basic Instinct: Making–With. The first phase of the research was developed in collaboration Paulina Martina, a digital designer, who worked on the virtual reality component. Part of that initial phase focused on creating a connection between the physical materials and the virtual world. You will find more info about this aspect on the Materia Futura website.
“Sustainability should not only be responsible, but also desirable – able to shimmer, glow, and connect with our senses.”
The work combines bio-based material experimentation with traditional craft techniques, using hands-on processes to push beyond the visual language typically associated with sustainable design. Effects such as chromatic shifts, moiré patterns, and layered textures are explored not as decoration, but as inherent material expressions inspired by natural phenomena. While earlier phases of the project investigated links between physical materials and digital or immersive environments, the designers are currently reassessing how and whether these components will continue in future iterations.
Materia Futura is firmly in a research and exploratory phase. The materials developed are not yet positioned for immediate industrial scale or collection integration. Instead, the project functions as a provocation and a testing ground, relevant to designers, material developers, and brands interested in expanding how sustainability is perceived, communicated, and desired.
In the wider material landscape, Materia Futura challenges the assumption that responsible materials must be visually restrained to be credible. Its contribution lies in reframing sustainability as something that can be sensory, expressive, and culturally resonant, without denying its biological or ethical foundations.
For Pasquini and Sandini, success is not defined by a single material outcome, but by opening space for a richer, more emotionally literate future for bio-based design.
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