Biodesign recognizes 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 Asiaaddresses 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.

A project initiated by Goethe-Institut South Asia in collaboration with the Bio Design Lab at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG) and conducted in Sri Lanka in partnership with the Department of Integrated Design, University of Moratuwa and Kälam.

Seaweed is far more than a simple marine vegetation abundantly growing in the seas around Sri Lanka — it is a powerhouse of unique properties with immense potential. Unlike land plants, seaweed requires no freshwater, fertilizer, or fertile soil to thrive, growing faster than terrestrial crops. Its natural ability to absorb carbon dioxide and excess nutrients makes it a vital tool for mitigating ocean acidification and eutrophication. Rich in bioactive compounds like alginates and fucoidans, seaweed offers anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antioxidant benefits.  From regenerating marine ecosystems to replacing fossil-based materials, seaweed’s versatility makes it a promising blue resource to explore further. The lab invites participants to work with seaweed at the intersection of biology, design, and architecture. Through hands-on experimentation — growing, molding, observing, and co-creating with seaweed 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 emerges when control is shared with a living system?

Working with local partners, the lab will examine how seaweed 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 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. Seaweed grows on its own terms. So does a community, an ecosystem, a knowledge system. The lab beginswithcarefulobservation.
• Non-extractive collaboration. The lab enters relationships based on agreement, mutual learning, and shared responsibility — with local communities, knowledge holders, and the material itself.
• Material-led thinking. Seaweed 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.

• An immersive, field-based research environment working directly with seaweed and local substrates.
• Hands-on experimentation: growing, molding, testing, and prototyping with living seaweed systems.
• Structured mentorship from regional and international practitioners in bio design, seaweed, 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 may inform the Travelling Resource Centre and related public outputsin 2027.