Forming bacterial cellulose: a research activity exploiting digital fabrication technologies

Bacterial Cellulose (BC) is a material gaining increasing interest in design research. Being produced by the fermentation of Kombucha tea, it is classified, as others, as “growing material”. Growing BC offers different research inputs in terms of producing cellulose without extraction practices, reversing the current raw material supply dynamics. By monitoring the materials growth, designers are able to customise shapes, colours, finishes and other aesthetic characteristics of the material while producing it. In this study different experimental activities concerning aesthetic characteristics of grown BC will be presented and discussed. To have a better control on the BC shaping it has been necessary to deploy digital fabrication – and particularly additive manufacturing – techniques to realise masks and drawer moulds, supports for the drying and other tools. Therefore, this contribution offers a case study on the mix between digital craft approaches and codesigning with living beings, to understand the possibilities of working with different production perspectives.