Bio Design recognises life as an interconnected web and encourages design practices that work with ecological systems rather than exploiting them. By viewing materials as part of living, dynamic systems, the project promotes creative approaches that value symbiotic relationships between nature, technology, and culture, aiming to support balanced and respectful coexistence with the environment.
Elemental Imprints: Bio Design Lab South Asia, addresses pressing environmental, economic, and social challenges across South Asia by exploring sustainable, non-extractive uses of undervalued local resources such as invasive plants, agricultural byproducts, algae, and industrial waste. Through a multidisciplinary collaboration involving designers, scientists, craftspeople, engineers, architects, and humanities scholars, it seeks context-specific solutions rooted in local cultures and ecosystems while informed by global perspectives. Its objectives include transforming overlooked resources into valuable materials, building collaborative networks between South Asian and international experts, fostering innovative design processes, and establishing a Resource Center to share knowledge through a public material library, prototypes, and publications.
THE DELHI LAB — MYCELIUM
Mycelium is the vegetative network of fungi — a living, branching intelligence that grows through soil, binds organic matter, and quietly holds ecosystems together.
It decomposes agricultural waste into lightweight, biodegradable structures. It self-repairs. It responds to its environment. In the Delhi Lab, we approach mycelium not as raw material to be processed, but as a collaborator whose growth patterns, timelines, and behaviours shape the design process itself.
The lab invites participants to work with mycelium at the intersection of biology, design, and architecture. Through hands-on experimentation — growing, moulding, observing, and co-creating with fungal systems — participants will explore what it means to design alongside a living organism, that does not follow instructions. What kinds of forms, structures, and ways of thinking become possible when growth itself is the method and structure? What happens when the material has agency? What kind of designs emerge when control is shared with a living system?
Working with local partners, the lab will examine how fungal networks can support circular, low-impact production and regenerative material systems. It will also open broader questions about material agency, ecological thinking, and alternative design philosophies grounded in the evolving relationship between humans and living matter.
The Delhi Lab is one of eight labs within the Elemental Imprints: Bio Design Lab South Asia programme. All lab outcomes will contribute to a Travelling Resource Centre, to be launched in 2027, making the materials, prototypes, and knowledge generated by the project publicly accessible across the region.
WHAT GUIDES THE LAB
The following principles are not rules — they are the shared ground from which the lab operates.
Process over product. The lab values experimentation, negotiation, and honest failure as outcomes. What is learned in the making matters more than what is produced.
Listening before intervening. Mycelium grows on its own terms. So does a community, an ecosystem, a knowledge system.The lab begins with careful observation.
Non-extractive collaboration. The lab enters relationships based on agreement, mutual learning, andsharedresponsibility with local communities, knowledge holders, and the material itself.
Material-led thinking. Mycelium is not a blank medium to be shaped to our ends. It is an agent that will shape the imagination, ethics, and form of what participants make.
Collective authorship. Outcomes are shared. Individual credit is secondary to the integrity of the collective inquiry.
Designing with time. The lab embraces change, growth, and the afterlife of materials. Permanence is not the goal.
WHAT THE LAB OFFERS
An immersive, field-based research environment working directly with mycelium and local substrates.
Hands-on experimentation: growing,moulding, testing, and prototyping with living fungal systems.
Structured mentorship from regional and international practitioners inbiodesign, mycology, and material science.
Collaborative inquiry alongside designers, scientists, architects, craftspeople, and humanities scholars.
Field visits and conversations with local stakeholders and ecological communities.
Contribution to a shared body of material samples, prototypes, and research documentation that will form part of the showcase in 2027.
WHO SHOULD APPLY
This lab is not a skills workshop or a portfolio programme. It is an immersive field-based research residency. We welcome applications from practitioners who are curious, grounded and willing to work beyond the boundaries of their discipline.
We invite applications from:
Designers, architects, and makers with an interest in biological materials and process-based practice.
Scientists and researchers working in biology, ecology, mycology, material science, or environmental studies.
Artists, craftspeople, cultural and community practitioners whose work engages with living systems, materiality or ecological thinking.
Engineers and technologists exploring circular, low-impact, bio-based production, or sustainable design.
Students in related fields who are prepared for a field-intensive programme structure.
Applicants should be prepared and comfortable to work in collaborative, interdisciplinary settings,with hands-on field conditions, and bring a willingness to listen, observe, document and share. It is a research residency grounded in engaging respectfully with ecology, local community knowledge systems, and material experimentation. We are looking for people who are curious, process-oriented, and ready to engage with the unfamiliar and unexpected.
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
(* Mandatory)
A. Portfolio*
Share documentation of earlier or ongoing projectsthat foregrounds process, experimentation, or material inquiry over finished output. This may include sketches, samples, photographs, field notes, or any format that shows how you work.
B. Project Proposal (1000 words)*
Write, Draw, Map or Document your response.
Briefly describe your project proposal for the lab period. This can be an ongoing project or a new idea you wish to explore. The focus is not on creating a finished product, but on engaging with the process, reflecting, and developing your work.
C. CV*
A current curriculum vitae or a short biographical note outlining your practice, background, and relevant experience.
D. Contextual Reflection (300 words)*
Describe a material you have encountered in a specific context — a place, a community, an ecosystem — and what it revealed to you. We are interested in your capacity to observe before designing.
SELECTION CRITERIA
Applications will be reviewed by a joint panel of regional and international experts. Selection will prioritise attunement to context over aesthetic polish, process over product, listening before intervention, and collective inquiry over individual authorship.
Target cohort size: 10–12 participants
Selected participants will be required to confirm their availability for the entire duration, including full on-site engagement.
PROGRAMME LOGISTICS
Duration: 10 days, August 2026
Location: New Delhi
Participation: Free of charge
Material, Equipment & Accomodation: Provided by the lab
Language: English
Travel: Limited travel support available for selected participants
HOW TO APPLY
Collate all the materials and submit your complete application as a single PDF to programme.delhi@goethe.de.
‘Elemental Imprints understands bio design not only as the search for new materials, but as an invitation to rethink design itself: as a practice that connects ecological systems, cultural knowledge, and creative experimentation in order to imagine more sustainable futures. Elemental Imprints is committed to creating an inclusive, diverse, and accessible research environment.’
