First Library in the West Exclusively Featuring Sustainable Materials Launched at SFSU for Climate Responsible Design

SFSU Launches its Sustainable Materials Learning Library, the first on the West Coast to feature only Sustainable (Biodegradable or Recycled) Materials

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA, May 11, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- The first Materials Library on the West Coast addressing the climate crisis by focusing exclusively on showcasing sustainable and/or recycled materials for designers and the creative industry has just been launched by the San Francisco State University (SFSU) School of Design this Spring. SFSU Design students and faculty Professors JD Beltran and Fernando Carvalho¹, along with Director of the School of Design Mari Hulick have founded and created the new SFSU Sustainable Materials Learning Library, headquartered in the SFSU campus Humanities Building. This invaluable new resource for designers and those in the creative fields to research and utilize in their projects will be accessible to the SFSU community and the general public, showcasing the latest developments in sustainable materials that address the climate crisis and foster a circular economy.

In their principled approach, the SFSU School of Design materials library team adhered to the creative use of sustainable materials in every step of this novel endeavor. Every element in the library—from the infrastructure, display structures, signage, and information tiles containing the actual material samples—is created from biodegradable or recycled materials.

SFSU students, along with SFSU Staff Richard Ortiz and Justin Wong and Professor Beltran, invented, designed, and built an ingenious mobile wall display system with a modernist aesthetic, utilizing sustainable plywood sheets and hempcrete block bases that showcase the information tiles in the new library. SFSU students sourced samples of the actual sustainable materials from manufacturers and industry resources all over the world; they then attached examples of the ingenious new sustainable materials being created such as mycelium composites, hempcrete, bamboo, algae rubber, organic cotton, hempwool, newspaperwood, adobe, and recycled glass, in five-inch square samples to an information tile with a visual system that the students also created and designed.

Professor Carvalho also announced, “This year, for the first time ever, San Francisco State University has been named a finalist in the international Biodesign Challenge Summit 2023, June 22-23. The SFSU School of Design has been invited to showcase the new Sustainable Materials Learning Library along with SFSU Product Design students' sustainability projects and proposals at the Biodesign Challenge Summit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.”

The SFSU team was chosen as a finalist from multiple entrants from 15 countries who have spent the Spring 2023 semester imagining, creating, and critiquing future applications of biotechnology and its role in society. At this year’s Summit, held in person at the Museum of Modern Art and Parsons School of Design in New York City, the SFSU team will present their projects and compete for the coveted Glass Microbe before a jury of leading industry, academic, and curatorial experts. On the evening of June 22, 2023, the work also will be featured at a gallery opening at Arnhold Hall at Parsons’ New School. The opening is free to the public and will feature artifacts and images created by the student teams.

SFSU’s student team members currently are fundraising resources to be able to make the journey to present their award-winning work in New York.

Carvalho added, “SFSU Students are generating ingenious and creative ways to combine product and service design, technology, and science to address some of the most pressing environmental and social problems facing our collective future. Through research, experiments, creative work, and dialogue with field-specific experts, students in our innovative product design course have proposed solutions to issues such rising sea levels, microplastics contamination, loss of biodiversity, and community engagement towards sustainable local action.”

In addition to the exhibition in New York, the new SFSU Sustainable Materials Learning Library also is being showcased in San Francisco at the campus DesignSpace Gallery (FA115) in a SFSU Design Exhibition, PERENNIAL PLANET, through May 11, 2023. The PERENNIAL PLANET exhibition showcases not only the inaugural Sustainable Materials Learning Library tiles, but the innovative creations and concepts by SFSU students from Professor Carvalho’s product design course developed for the 2023 Biodesign Challenge.

PERENNIAL PLANET
SFSU DesignSpace, Fine Arts Bldg 115
April 28 - May 11, 2023

SFSU Professor JD Beltran has an extended history of launching projects for sustainability that address the causes and impacts of climate change, including launching Do1Act.org (an educational resource for spreading knowledge and sparking collective action towards reversing climate change) as well as establishing the Center for Creative Sustainability, a consultancy for fostering initiatives² for sustainability through community projects and partnerships. Professor Beltran remarked, “Even after years of teaching in this field, my SFSU students constantly surprise me with their clever—brilliant, even—experimentation and creativity! It’s been incredibly rewarding to witness their hard work in launching this invaluable new materials resource to spur the imagination of designers, architects, and those in the creative industries. The library's founding team is looking forward to growing the SFSU Sustainable Materials Learning Library to inspire future designers and artists in new ways of thinking, and in progressing a circular economy that can preserve our planet for future generations.”

School of Design Director, Professor Mari Hulick added that the School of Design has been discussing the establishment of a Sustainable Materials Learning Library at the School of Design for many years. "JD Beltran and her students have finally realized this dream, which will be an asset in educating the campus and public as to responsible design for our future.”

SFSU SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS LEARNING LIBRARY FOUNDERS

Director of Design Mari Hulick
Professor JD Beltran
Professor Fernando Carvalho
SFSU Staff Richard Ortiz
SFSU Staff Justin Wong

SFSU Students:
Claudia Acuna Melendez
Cecilia Cao
Jazlyn Castro
Danya Dajani
Christopher Felix Quintero
Cole Galvin
Jeremy Helstone
Farrah Lam
Andres Lucero
Danica-Yvanne Mariano
Gaspar Mendoza-Lopez
Jacksaline Perez
Cesar Pinto
Marilyn Ramirez
Michelle Sit
Maurice Slade
Brandon Tam
Rebecca Tang
Eric Velasquez
Kristina Zimina

For more information about the School of Design at San Francisco State University see https://design.sfsu.edu/

For inquiries about the SFSU Sustainable Materials Learning Library, please write jdbeltran@sfsu.edu.

For inquiries about SFSU’s participation in the international Biodesign Challenge, please write fcarvalho@sfsu.edu.
JD Beltran
San Francisco State University School of Design
+1 415-786-6906
jdbeltran@sfsu.edu

JD Beltran
Center for Creative Sustainability
+1 415-786-6906
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WATCH NOW: It's Your Story: Tell it at SF State at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsPnJJqRSOI

¹ https://www.biodesignchallenge.org/sfsu-2023
² https://www.creativesustainability.org/
³ https://www.gofundme.com/f/sfsu-students-to-nyc-for-climate-change-showcase?utm_medium=email&utm_source=product&utm_campaign=p_email%2B4803-donation-alert-v5