Knowledge Systems for Design Research [Publication]

Chapter for Academic Journal Les Cahiers du musée for Centre Pompidou (forthcoming) on Material as Pedagogy

About: This research paper explores how material-driven design practices can integrate sustainable, biodesign-oriented knowledge into evolving academic and archival systems.

Collaboration with: Ori Orisun Merhav (Design Researcher / DAE alumnus), Olivier Zeitoun (Curator at Centre Pompidou), Dr. Valentina Rognoli (Politecnico di Milano)

This paper examines material-driven practices in design research, focusing on the exploration of material-based methodologies within the MNAM/CCI Centre Pompidou collections and the conservation challenges they present. In partnership with the Musée and the Bibliothèque Kandinsky, it establishes a connection to the MNAM-CCI’s Design collections, which over the past decade have placed increasing emphasis on biodesign.

For this contribution, Naomi investigates how knowledge generated through material-driven practices can be integrated into both existing and emerging knowledge systems. Working in collaboration with the Jan van Eyck Academie—home to the Future Materials Bank, an extensive archive dedicated to sustainable materials and ecologically conscious art and design practices—this research engages with cross-disciplinary collaborations to address the intersection of design, sustainability, and archival practice. It further examines how design research interfaces with academic frameworks, contributing to the evolution of knowledge systems in the context of bio-inclusive design.

This project is supported by Les Amis du Centre Pompidou. he paper will be published in Cahiers du Musée national d'art moderne, the Centre Pompidou's leading scholarly journal on modern and contemporary art. Published quarterly by Éditions du Centre Pompidou since 1979, the journal features original essays and critical perspectives on modern and contemporary art and current cultural discourse.

What if we create with, rather than from? Beginning at the micro scale of lac-producing insects, this paper follows shellac as both substance and method to trace how Material-Driven Practices unsettle familiar divisions between research and making, nature and culture, knowledge and form. Moving between fieldwork in Thailand and India, studio experimentation in Made by Insects, and dialogue with designers and researchers, the paper explores how materials can become sites of relation, inquiry, and transformation. This inquiry is further broadened through the Centre Pompidou’s collection and through encounters with practitioners working in similar modes of research.

Developing the notion of design epistemology, the paper considers how knowledge emerges through, with, and by materials. It also approaches bio-inclusivity not as a fixed agenda, but as a shifting practice of coexistence, reciprocity, and response. The paper concludes with a roundtable discussion among the authors, not to close the argument, but to reflect, share questions, and think through its implications collectively. In this sense, material-driven practice is not only a mode of making, but a way of reimagining how knowledge can be produced, shared, and inhabited.