Fara Peluso

During the two years of material curating for the Living Library project (2024-2026), we have been experimenting with material decay and remediation, employing worm compost as methodology. Constantly observing worms and monitoring the decay process enabled me to reflect further on the big agencies of worms as soil engineers, co-designers, and wisdom companions. Worm compost has been a prodigious and complex decay method, mimicking the ‚circle of Life‘. A series of experiments led to writing a rich protocol for making a DIY composter based on ‚aquarium-composter‘ method . Such experiments invited to adop composting not only as a supplement but as a constitutive methodology in which decay is a design vector and remediation a material practice

The Living Library is a transdisciplinary project developed at the Bio Design Lab (@biodesignlab_hfgk ) of the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (@hfg_ka ), which reimagines how locally rooted materials, knowledge, and design practices can contribute to ecological transformation. Over two years, the project fostered practice-based learning focused on locally sourced raw materials, experimental making, and sustainable production. Through colloquia, workshops, and field trips, materials were harvested, examined, activated, and ultimately returned to the soil. Its processes and outcomes unfolded across a website, a physical archive, and an open-access publication.

Project team: Julia Ihls (head of project, coordinator), Fara Peluso (material curator), Pleun van Dijk and Jaap Knevel (digital curators), Lilith Stumpf (coordination assistant), Luzia Holzbach and Benjamin Kaltenbach (material curation assistants), Cornelia Herzog, Pauline Kuch, and Sebastian Schilbach (digital curation assistants).

(CC BY-NC 4.0) Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design.
Funded by the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education Teaching.

Photos: © Bio Design Lab, Living Library

#LivingLibrary #CircularDesign #HfGKarlsruhe #BioDesign #MaterialResearch