The intersection of the creative industry and academia is becoming an increasingly important space for material innovation. Through an experimental approach to materials science, Sarah King from Earthli Projects, in collaboration with STEAMhouse and Zoe Powell, a Biomaterials Designer and Researcher, developed the BioBox—a disruptive tool designed to encourage circular design principles and rethink traditional material sourcing.

The BioBox provides businesses, designers, artists and researchers with access to sustainable material recipes while incorporating local waste streams into the development process. By integrating biomaterial experimentation with open-source knowledge sharing, this initiative facilitates a more inclusive and accessible approach to sustainable materials research.

The BioBox enables individuals to engage with materials science in a hands-on, practical way, offering an alternative to conventional sourcing methods by encouraging the use of readily available, local waste streams. Whether sourced from domestic or commercial environments, these waste materials are transformed into new biomaterials through recipes and guidance provided within the kit.

One of the key innovations of the BioBox is its integration with Materiom's open-source data platform. Participants not only experiment with biomaterial recipes but also contribute their findings to a shared online framework. This allows for collective learning, where industry professionals and academic researchers can build upon existing knowledge, improving material properties and expanding potential applications.

Unlike traditional lab-based workshops, the BioBox offers a remote, adaptable alternative, allowing for wider participation with a lower barrier to entry. The kit, which was first developed doing Covid, is designed to be globally scalable, distributed to individuals and institutions working on creative research projects at various levels. This approach fosters relationships between participants based on shared principles of openness, collaboration, and innovation.

The BioBox is a postal kit containing natural ingredients and biomaterial recipes available through the Materiom platform. Packaging is designed to be environmentally friendly and reusable, aligning with the project’s commitment to sustainability. Recipients take part in an eight-week structured programme as part of a small cohort, where they explore material processing techniques used across different industries.

Throughout the programme, participants engage with an online community, exchanging ideas and findings in real-time. A key part of the process involves group sampling, where all participants test the same biomaterial recipes to enable comparable evaluations of properties such as tensile strength, wettability, and heat resistance—critical factors in determining the commercial feasibility of new materials.

The first iteration of the BioBox was launched in June 2020 as part of the STEAMhouse x Materiom collaboration, serving as an initial test stage for the concept. Since then, the initiative has evolved into a structured framework designed to support biomaterials research at scale, making accessible, hands-on learning possible beyond the constraints of physical workshops. It has also now been embedded into university curriculum to support the develop of practice based material cultures across various design degrees.

The project actively challenges current consumption habits by embedding education and responsible design principles into material development. By fostering a culture of shared knowledge and sustainable experimentation, the BioBox offers a practical tool for shaping the future of biomaterial innovation.

If you are interested in hosting a BioBox workshop with your community, please get in touch to learn more.