Greta Dalessandro#

About me#

Who is Greta Dalessandro? A turqouise product designer based in Milan working on new materials and fibers, focused on bioplastics and ecodesign.

My background#

I grew up in a family where creativity is synonymous with know-how, between the sewing room of my maternal grandmother and the carpenter’s workshop of my paternal family. Since I was a child I wanted to be an inventor but after few years I discovered the declination “designer”.

I did the three-year degree at the Polytechnic of Bari in Industrial Design, then I moved to Milan for the master degree in Product Design for Innovation.

I attended a short course in 2017 that introduced materials such as bioplastics, kombucha, circular economy, future foods(FUTURE FOOD E BIO MATERIALI by Barbara Pollini, cofounder of Nuup

These were subjects I had discovered during the writing of the master thesis and they fascinated me so much that I made them the main topic.

Previous work#

I’m looking for my method and my design philosophy.

I wanted to give a communicative sense to the consumption of the material, an experience that the user acquires by creating an intimate relationship with it. BioCare, BioNotice and BioSliver are my three projects of Master Degree. Three different paths with a common philosophy.

[PoliMi’s users download] (https://www.politesi.polimi.it/handle/10589/132985?mode=full&submit_simple=Visualizza+tutti+i+metadati+del+documento)

(for more information ask me the documentation!)

Bionotice (2017)#

This is a project born by exploiting the solubility of tomato-based bioplastics. Slowly the dish is consumed revealing a story that the hidden truth of the critical dynamics in Puglia about the situation of harvesting vegetables among the mafia, exploitation of the condition of irregular immigrants and extreme conditions of work.

BioSliver (2017)#

A stock of wearable dried food. A jacket with portions of dried fruit sewn into a layer of natural cloth that corresponds to the weekly requirement of fruit and vegetables of an adult. Every piece detached thanks to the seams changes the composition of the jacket continuously.

BioCare (2017)#

In this case the experience with the material is the symbiotic relationship between the maintenance of the kombucha and the user. The scoby of Kombucha (fermented tea) contains numerous acids that are also excellent for cell regeneration. The user uses a kit to grow his fresh face mask, taking care of the correct fermentation of the tea.

Course Goals#

I am looking for the knowledge necessary to find my personal design mood. I believe in the strength that materials have to communicate, especially materials that have biological origins. I believe that this project direction belongs to me and can be productive for me, both for its diffusion (also at university level, in terms of research) and for its uses.

About two years ago I found Suzanne Lee ‘s work and intrigued me so much by making me approach this experimental world. The following year I attended a talk by Anouk Wipprecht in Milan, after discussing the thesis on topics such as the sensitivity of biologic materials.

Cafe Neu Romance 2012: Robotic Spider Dress by Anouk Wipprecht (NDL) & Daniel Schartzmayr (AUT) from Vive Les Robots! on Vimeo.

The concept of being able to grow your dress particularly seduces me, gives me the idea of having care of wearable objects and to have a reduced environmental impact respect to industrial processing techniques. I would especially like to deepen the use of bacteria and microorganisms trying to make them interact with the external environment through electronic inputs (using Arduino)