fabrics of life

Further to the successes of Nobel Textiles, which married five Nobel prize-winning scientists to five leading textile and fashion designers, comes the NOBELini scheme offering young scientists and designers the chance to pair up and brainstorm ways to celebrate and communicate science through design.

30 scientist-designer pairs were devised following a speed-dating event at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre in May 2009.

The pairs spent the summer brainstorming design ideas before submitted proposals for their design prototypes.

Proposals were invited across four themes:

• stem cells
• energy and recycling
• synthetic and systems biology
• imaging

In September 2009 an international panel of professional designers and scientists reviewed the resulting proposals for designs that celebrate and/or communicate science and chose three winning ideas.

• The good, the bad and the negative

• ALBERT in the NeuroPlastic Land and

• Feel out loud

The following proposals were highly commended:

• Nature hates emptiness

• From photons to footprints

An independent filmmaker, Holly Stead, screened her short documentary about the project, Two cultures, at the prize-giving on 25th September 2009 at the IET. The documentary will shortly be available on this website. She continues to follow the prize-winning pairs as they build their design prototypes.

Winners will exhibit prototypes in February 2010 at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre. Details coming soon.