Lilian van Daal & Roos Meerman with Renée van Amerongen

Dynamorphosis, the beauty of inner mechanisms

In collaboration with Swammerdam Institue for Life Sciences of the University of Amsterdam

Lilian van Daal & Roos Meerman are fascinated by the purity and efficiency of nature. The beauty of organic and dynamic, yet robust processes in the human body inspired Van Daal & Meerman to examine the applicability of the same principles in materials and objects. Their research focusses on the self-assembling ability of the human body during embryonic development.

Laudatio:
Jury: this project explores the potential of design applications, in objects and materials, based in the form generating mechanisms of the body. The jury found this topic had a particularly strong connection in both linking biological processes to 4D printing, and in advancing the expertise the designers have clearly been developing for some time in their previous work.

In addition, the jury was impressed with the possibility of practical outcomes emerging from this project, revealing and reveling in the hidden beauties of the body, guided by relevant scientific expertise. The designers seem to take the confident and admirable approach of being biological actors that shape technology, rather than the other way around. The jury hopes that in the hands of such designers, the break-neck pace of innovation will be more inflected by empathy rooted in appreciation of the beauty of inner mechanisms, from fractal like blood vessel networks to the cyclical tumescence of mammary glands.

More information:
Collaboration with Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences of the University of Amsterdam.
Lilian van Daal 
Roos Meerman 
Renée van Amerongen