Integrating living organisms in design could offer alternative and more sustainable ways of producing and using products. The use of bioluminescent organisms in design is a relatively new and unknown subject. Because of this, interested designers have a lot of homework to do before starting the actual design process. Successfully changing the organisms habitat from nature to a user’s home and provoking the desired luminescence depends on specific biological and environmental requirements. The aim of this graduation project is to provide interested designers with guidelines on the cultivation and perpetuation of bioluminescent organisms when integrated into a consumer product. The first step is to gather information on two bioluminescent organisms, P. fusiformis and P. phosphoreum, in an extensive literature research. This results in design insights which compare both organisms on the challenges and potential when integrated in a consumer product. The second step continues with the most promising organism, P. phosphoreum. This organism is used within experiments further researching the bioluminescent and perpetuation characteristics, relating them to usage and storage possibilities. The experiment results are translated into design insights. The third step is to combine the design insights from both the literature research and the conducted experiments into guidelines which will help and inspire interested designers in the creation of products with integrated bioluminescent organisms. The guidelines are applied within a future scenario which will act as an example on how P. phosphoreum could be integrated within a design.

This master’s thesis is a collaboration between DSM Dyneema and the Circular Design Lab, a part of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. DSM Dyneema is a business group within the large Dutch multinational DSM N.V. They looking into means of making their business practice more suited to a future in a circular economy. Like many materials producers, these efforts start within their own walls; looking for ways to re-purpose production residuals. Aside from disposal costs, the motivation for this project was to determine more sustainable mindset in a production of materials with a non-renewable origin. Dyneema® is a high-performance synthetic fibre with exceptional strength for its weight. It also had many other favorable properties. It is however challenging to recycle in existing processes. Similarly, the energy invested into the material make it a potentially high value residual. Means of leveraging inherent value were explored in this thesis.The material landscape provides a plethora of (re-)processing possibilities. A selection was explored in order to determine feasibility of implementation within current technological and economic bounds. This offered insights into the readiness of these producers to work in collaboration with DSM Dyneema in a circular value chain. Considering how residual materials to be collected, re-used, re-purposed, etcetera.From the standpoint of product design this project provided the unique opportunity to develop user value from the starting point of the material itself. In terms of the circular economy - where goals are expressed in terms of utility and value retention of materials- this project provided a unique opportunity in product design. The Material Driven Design method (Karana et al.,2015) was used as a framework to guide the search for user value through material experience. Where traditionally product design is lead by a user problem and solutions are embodied with appropriate materials and processes, this method allowed this thinking to be inverted and guided the design to consider the various aspects of material experience before designing a product. A material experience vision is defined and guides the design of a final product that encompasses experiential/technical properties of the material and accounts for circular product considerations. A full circle; from production residuals to a meaningful application and a design that accounts for product life and the responsible re-collection of materials to put them to use in future.