“Innovation turned into a magic word, all things new are being embraced in an instant. As a designer I desire to discover if technical innovation alone is enough to succeed in practice or if other qualities are needed.”

Meet Roos Meerman, a 23-year-old designer from the Netherlands who studied product design at Artez academy for the Arts. She mainly focuses on techniques instead of products, as the process regarding innovation intrigues her more than the final outcome itself. “I want to create materials and techniques that appeal to people, that make them wonder what it is”.
 

Roos’ latest project is Area Fabrica, which arise from an online video about the inflation of marshmallows in a vacuum chamber. Roos was instantly intrigued and got the idea to insert this technique in different materials that would have the characteristics of staying inflated permanently. Area Fabrica is a combination of blow molding, glass blowing and 3D printing.

 
“With my project Area Fabrica I research other qualities of 3D printing, my drive is the fascination I have for this technique. The technique is still in development and currently quite inert, expensive and difficult to upscale. Moreover, outcomes of the 3D printer are mostly gadgets as people still consider this machine as a product producer instead of a material producer. My goal is to change this assumption and to discover new material characteristics through the 3D printer.”

 
She started with simply stretching plastic and after that moved forward with blowing the plastic up just like a balloon. When plastic is heated it turns into a flexible substance that can be transformed in to every possible shape, cooling it down solidifies this specific shape again. This technique mind remind one of glassblowing but with Area Fabrica the form is determined before the inflating process, which allows more influence on the final form.

Roos likes to see her project as a combination between Art & Science, an experiment to push boundaries regarding great objects. Area Fabrica is the perfect example of our current redefining trend as this project mainly focuses on discovering new ways of engaging with well-known materials. It creates awareness regarding the fact that we should be open to determine new paths, to define the old into the new. Area Fabrica teaches us to never stop redefining.

 
The project Aera Fabrica won the Hendrik Valk prize 2014, the New Material Fellow 2014 and the Design and Innovation award Gelderland. At the moment Roos is developing the process and researching the different possible applications.

Cecile Cremer

www.roosmeerman.com

Extremely curious and always searching for little weak signals that tell us things are changing. Cecile is a trend researcher and creative concept developer with the wanderlust of a cosmopolitan.Her aim in life is to develop things that matter to others and to help others change their strategy to be ahead of the future. Because she believes “The future is ours”.

www.wanderingthefuture.com