Maciej Chmara, Natalia Svedlund & Sam Hill
Fermentation as a Design Method - Brewing for the Circular Economy
Block seminar, English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS, 7 places
1., 2., 4. & 8. October 2024, each 10 - 15 h, Berlin Open Lab at UdK, Einsteinufer 43
Please note: For students of Design, this course cannot be recognized as a Studium Generale achievement!

Please register by sending an email indicating the course and noting down your name, matriculation number and study programme to Joanna Cywinska at joanna.cywinska_ @drlab.org.

Members from the UdK (Design Research Lab) and the DFKI (Design Research explorations) are working with German bakeries on reducing food waste by improving time-series forecasting of bread and donuts: https://www.green-ai-hub.de/pilotprojekte/pilotprojekt-brammibals-donuts-foodtracks. This team is working on introducing the public to new forms of thinking about how to utilize the existing / remaining waste in the baked-goods and bread industry by implementing refermentation and brewing.  We will specifically use left-over donuts from the local Berlin donut company, Brammibal’s Donuts, in this process and thought-development process.

As part of this course, participants learn about the circular economy and means to address it through the use of waste materials.  Exploring this concept from the bread (food) industry is the starting point.  We will discuss potential methods to improve creation-use-reuse within this sector, but we will focus on reuse through the fermentation and brewing of donuts into beer or other ferment products.  As part of this concept, participants will learn about traditional and DIY fermentation and brewing and they will have the opportunity to understand how to perform fermentation and brewing in a home-based setting through an in-class demonstration, lectures, and prototype building.  A goal of the workshop is to taste and bottle brews produced by the different brewing kits and donut-fermentation processes.


 

Maciej Chmara grew up in Poland, Austria and Germany. He studied interior architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk and Architecture at TU Vienna. For a short time, he studied space and design strategies and architecture at the University of Arts in Linz.  Besides being an active artist and designer, he is also a Künstlerischer Mitarbeiter at Design and Social Context at the University of the Arts Berlin.  He is also working on a PhD within the scope of speculative design and envisioning alternative realities of biology, ourselves, and our food cultures (whether in the kitchen or in the wild). 
Natalia Svedlund is a researcher at the TU Berlin Beverage and Brewing Institute.  She is an expert in fermentation and brewing techniques and has helped design and deploy large-scale fermentation industrial systems for several multi-national German brewing companies.  She is currently working on a PhD exploring new yeasts in fermentation in an assortment of new food-beverage products outside of traditional beers and spirits. 
Sam Hill is a member of the Design Research Lab and a Senior Consultant with the DFKI Design Research eXplorations (DRX) team.  Sam has nearly 20 years of experience in the development of industrial automation and software solutions, sustainability platforms, and electro-optical sensor systems.  Sam has a background in imaging and photographic technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology and graduate degrees in optical sciences from the University of Arizona and media sciences and technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory.