Material Driven Design Education: Exploring Circularity and Regeneration through Waste-Based Experimentation

In light of the escalating climate and resource crises, design education must reconsider its role in shaping circular and regenerative futures, particularly with regard to emerging materials from waste. This paper presents the results of a pedagogical study conducted at the Joint School of Design and Innovation of Xi’an Jiaotong University and Politecnico di Milano. In this study, 120 students transformed local food and textile waste into new materials through hands-on experimentation, based on the Material Driven Design (MDD) approach, in a Chinese educational context. A comparative analysis of six student projects across toy and accessory applications reveals a synergy between the MDD approach and narratives of waste-based materials, articulated through socio-ecological and cultural-geographic forms of engagement. The findings demonstrate that MDD can activate two distinct local waste streams as resources for circularity and regeneration while facilitating material exploration, design application and pedagogical reflection in contemporary design education.