A stainless steel cow that produces vegan milk, or a vertical farm that grows mini lettuce for future astronauts. And that’s just a glimpse of what’s on display in this article’s opening video, shared by the organizers of Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
This year’s 23rd edition of the event has space farming as one of its themes, and its goal is to present the future of gastronomy and farming.
What is the exhibition about?
In this section, the Dutch non-profit organizations Next Nature and Embassy of Food, which organize the exhibition, want to show people, as well as interested parties from companies in the industry, how one might react to the growing consumption of food and not only meat.
Not only Dutch designers showed their designs at the exhibition in Eindhoven, but also some scientists and even farmers and some startups. But the works of designers attract the most attention. For example, creatives have sought to find a way to new resources for farming and sustainable food chains both on Earth and in space. This was also what some of the represented companies, which arrived from neighboring countries, tried to do.
For example, the Belgian food-tech company Those Vegan Cowboys presented the above-mentioned life-size stainless steel cow, which produces vegan milk and cheese up to six times more efficiently than ordinary cattle, writes Dezeen magazine, which informs about the exhibition and created the aforementioned video for the organizers.
Why there is no need for a milk cow
The exhibition of this company explains to visitors that there are microbes in the cow’s stomach that transform the cow’s food through a fermentation process for milk, and an animal is no longer needed to use them today.
Another device called Lighthouse by Dutch design duo 4F Studio presents itself as a bioreactor that uses the luminous smog produced by street lights to grow algae and ultimately produce plant-based food rich in fats and proteins.
Plants can also grow at night
The designers believe that the “waste light” can be used for photosynthesis and for the cyanobacteria to thrive and grow even during the night. According to them, such a bioreactor could produce nutrients equivalent to two salads in a single night.
And the Swedes from the furniture company IKEA also came. Her own design innovation lab, Space10, designed a vertical farm for use in space that could grow micro-vegetables and young shoots suitable for consumption from the moment they start to sprout their first leaves. It should be easy and quick to grow and also contain high levels of nutrients, vitamins or antioxidants.
Gills? More like wearables
Another proposal, Sensetopia, by Dutch student and designer Laila Snevelová, on the other hand, outlines the future rather like science fiction, where a person is able to adjust their own senses according to the current health challenges. For example, sensitivity to sunlight or air pollution.
At first glance, her installations might look like the young Dutch woman suggests that people grow gills or cover their eyes with a shielding plaque.
But really, Sensetopia puts more emphasis on companies focusing more on so-called “wearables” devices. These already detect pressure, temperature, pulse and blood oxygenation in the form of rings, but one day they could also detect unhealthy nutrients and components or sugars in the food we eat or the air we breathe. And maybe the gills would also come to mind.
