Column of a material maker #1
Does a maker make a good innovator? Caroline Grellier, freshly graduated designer from Ecole Boulle in Paris, chronicles for Makery her project “Cooperative for the waste recovery of viticulture materials” for which she has just joined the Sup’Agro Montpellier business incubator. The purpose is to retrieve viticulture by-products to design new materials.
Product designer from Ecole Boulle in Paris, materials are my passion, my hobbyhorse. I am fascinated by their production, their implementation, their applications, and am convinced of the latent material innovation potential to be exploited in agricultural by-products. A maker in my own way, I experiment with these raw materials with limited financial means, without any scientific ambition, in order to attempt to reveal their potential with an empirical approach, which will turn them into the local materials of tomorrow.
This approach leads me today to join the Sup’Agro Montpellier business incubator with
a project of viticulture by-products upgrading that I prepared during my graduation year in 2013. From project to business incubator, the maker approach opens the doors of the scientific research lab.
From vineyard to distillery including the cellar, each year in France, 60,000 tons of vine shoots are pruned, 900,000 tons of grape marc are distilled, tens of thousands of hectolitres of wine lees are retrieved, tons of pomace abandoned. Yet, these materials have inherent potentials that are a little, not at all or badly exploited given the current upgrading that bypasses a material outcome.
October 2012, first experimentations
My research protocol is empirical, based on the state of the raw materials: solid, liquid, paste. I mix, cut, burn, pierce, mould. Particularly scented experimentations (that merrily perfume the 4th floor of the école Boulle in Paris), rich in small white worms, bacteria and mould – with all due respect for my neighbours!
I move forward intuitively without knowing what I am looking for. And as luck would have it, out of the one hundred or so samples of all sorts made with the means available, wooden moulds taped together, improvised presses and dubious cooking (that probably contributed to speed up the end of life of my oven), ten or so prove to be interesting to develop.
From the characteristics of these sample starts the design phase of the product applications useful to the actors in viticulture, where I imagine material life cycles.
December 2012, first version of the Cooperative
Rapidly, the idea arises of creating a social entrepreneurship in order to anchor the project in field experiences: CMVM, “Coopérative des Matières Viticoles à Valoriser” (Cooperative for the waste recovery of viticulture materials) energizes a circular economy, true conveyor of a local production brand. The mission of this micro-enterprise is to manage the recovery and storage of by-products according to season, transform the raw material into materials thanks to technical mediation and partnerships with research labs in the area. It also sees to the production of object-applications that serve the actors of the industry, proposed by the regional creators, inspired by the local materials from viticulture. The circle is complete, with a design methodology inspired from the principles of a circular economy.
The project is being built in a comprehensive manner on a local scale: one of its strengths relies on the networking it will generate. A cooperative pilot model is a first step, replicable to other viticulture regions in France and throughout the world, even expanded to other agricultural productions.
June 2013, a graduate!
I really want to pursue the project and make this CMVV fiction real, so I leave for Togo for a nine-month internship and find myself immersed in the universe of makers and fablabs. So much the better! The operating of these booming atypical places inspires me greatly as well as what I learn from the African culture.
The business incubator Agro Valo Méditerranée from Sup’Agro Montpellier opens for me the doors of its labs specialised in the viticulture industry and decides to assist me in developing the Cooperative, beginning with two materials: MDF (medium density fibreboard) from vine shoots and a new material half way between paper and plastic, 100% organically sourced from viticulture, intended for the label of the bottle.
January 2015, let’s get to work!
Whilst waiting to publish my second column, I am concocting an online information page on the project, available before the end of the month, that’s a promise!