Hybrid craft practices for sustainable materialities and narratives through digital fabrication

Authors

• Alessia Romani, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Western University, CanadaFollow
• Philip Gurrey, School of Design, Fanshawe College, CanadaFollow
• Imogen Clendinning, Department of Visual Arts, Western University, CanadaFollow
• Junyu Ke, Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism & Collaborative Specialization in Environment and Sustainability, Western University, CanadaFollow
• Joshua Pearce, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Western University, Canada; Ivey Business School, Western University, CanadaFollow

Abstract

Hybrid craft can help envision more sustainable futures, recognizing the human-nature-technology interdependence in ecological making practices. Beyond industrial and research applications, digital fabrication offers new aesthetic and formal possibilities to designers, artists, and practitioners, exploring new materialities and narratives to foster sustainable discourses through hybrid craft and reflective making. This paper explores how hybrid craft and digital fabrication can foster sustainable materialities and narratives to reflect on human-nature-technology relationships and advance sustainability discourses through Janus, a collaborative case study combining local natural elements with 3D printing and crafts. By showcasing a corn stalk alongside its 3D scanned and 3D printed counterpart, the artwork challenges existing human-centric biases and contemporary extractive systems, highlighting human impacts on nature, technological mediation, and sustainability narratives emerging from natural and technological materialities, e.g., different growing patterns, timescales, and perceptions. Similar artifacts foster collaboration and provoke discussions on sustainable practices, acknowledging post-anthropocentric perspectives toward sustainable futures.

Keywords

Sustainability; Provocative artifacts; 3D printing; Collaborative design

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1127

Citation

Romani, A., Gurrey, P., Clendinning, I., Ke, J., and Pearce, J. (2026) Hybrid craft practices for sustainable materialities and narratives through digital fabrication, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1127

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License