Material Kitchen is an initiative and resource for sustainable materials, housed at ITP/IMA (Interactive Telecommunications Program / Interactive Media Arts) at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Snapshot from Material Kitchen's bioplastic ideation session. Many colorful material swatches are on a table, hands are touching the materials.

Material Kitchen started in 2023 by recognizing the urgent need to research and adopt sustainable materials for prototyping and making physical computing and fabrication projects. We aim to serve as a resource for the ITP/IMA community consisting of students, faculty, staff, and more by:

  • Providing project consultations
  • Sharing resources on sustainable material options
  • Hosting workshops
  • Connecting and collaborating with relevant people and organizations
  • Studying material use patterns on the floor
  • Keep caring, experimenting, and researching
  • Inviting YOU to be a part of it (WIP!)

Material Kitchen have done:

  • Conducting countless experiments on biomaterials focusing on agar agar and other plant-based ingredients
  • Developing DIY biomaterial recipes
  • Creating projects with DIY biomaterials to demonstrate the potentials
  • Exhibiting our research work at NYU Bobst Library
  • Presenting work at conferences such as Sketching In Hardware
  • Hosting public workshops
  • Connecting and working with a wide range of biomaterial communities, researchers, designers, and artists as well as students
  • Developing and teaching a half-semester long graduate level research class at NYU ITP
  • Organizing a student biomaterial showcase
  • Publishing alternative material resources including off-the-shelf options and DIY biomaterials

We reimagine our relationship with materials:

  • What if sustainability can suggest new appealing aesthetics that have not been achieved through go-to materials like acrylics?
  • What if building material is something people need to take their own time to make, instead of buying off-the-shelf and throwing away?
  • Can materials be a holder of time, stories, and memories?

We Are:

Material Kitchen was founded in 2023 by Yeseul Song (Assistant Arts Professor at ITP/IMA) and Priyanka Makin (Graduate Researcher at ITP/IMA).

Contributors include: Christina Cappelli, Sustainable Material Research Lab class Fall 2023.

Supported by Tisch Creative Research, Future Imagination Fund, This Is Not A Drill, NYU Bobst Library, and ITP/IMA.

Thanks To:

It has taken a lot of people’s generous advice and kind help for this project to get this far. Thanks to: Rae Yuping Hsu (ITP/IMA), Kari Love (ITP/IMA), Tom Igoe (ITP/IMA), David Rios (ITP/IMA), Danny Rozin (ITP/IMA), Harry Winer (Kanbar Institute of Film & Television), Molly Ritmiller (Tandon), Ninad Pandit (The Cooper Union), Hyunjin Moon (National Renewable Energy Laboratory), and Niko Arranz (Biomaterials Studio at Genspace) have offered valuable insights and knowledge to this project. Staff members at ITP/IMA (Rob Ryan, Phil Caridi, Shirley, Adrian, Luke, Emma, George, and more…), the Bobst Library team (Elizabeth, Roxane, Shawnta), Shawn Van Every (ITP/IMA), and Kristel F Baldoz (TCR) have been essential to making the practical and logistical parts of this project happen. Bianca Gan, Gracy Whelihan, Nuntinee T, Tres Pimentel (all ITP/IMA), and many more people shared project ideas on what to make with the bioplastics we cooked. Shoutout to Nikita Huggins (ITP/IMA) for her work in biodesign on the floor. Lastly, huge thanks to ITP/IMA, This Is Not A Drill fellowship, Mona Sloan (NYU), and Tisch Creative Research for their belief and support in this work.