The symposium, Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures, will take place on the 13 March at the V&A Museum, bringing together international speakers across disciplines to discuss the potential of waste, reuse and circularity in production. Make Good is a curatorial project investigating the use of natural, renewable materials in design and architecture. It invites practitioners from different fields to share research, knowledge and skills and considers the responsibilities of designers and consumers toward the natural world. The project encompasses an annual symposium, display and an ongoing acquisition initiative capturing the program's research outputs in the museum collection.

AA Tutors Aude-Line Duliere and Juliet Haysom are invited to speak on waste streams. Other speakers include Christien Meindertsma, British Wool and Manteco on innovating with wool and Buzigahill, as well as Jorge Penadés. PearsonLloyd will discuss systems thinking with chartered waste manager Sophie Thomas – while Waugh Thistleton Architects, Atelier LUMA’s Jan Boelen and Sharjah Triennial 2023 curator Tosin Oshinowo will address questions of scale.

For those that want to attend in person, free tickets can be booked here. The symposium will also be live streamed for audiences that cannot make it to the V&A in person. To watch online, please sign up here.

Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures is supported by the designer and furniture maker John Makepeace OBE. The ten-year project launched in 2022 and encompasses an annual display in the Dr Susan Weber Gallery of Furniture, an annual symposium and a programme of acquisitions dedicated to exploring the use of renewable, natural materials in design and architecture at a time of climate emergency. 

Image: Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures Symposium poster courtesy of the V&A Museum.