ABSTRACT
Each new material developed opens a broader pallet of aesthetic and functional possibilities for designers. This paper introduces DIS to biofoam, a water-soluble, biodegradable material, and can be conductive. We describe the material in detail: the process of making the material from scratch, the material’s fabrication into forms with hand-craft techniques, and present two HCI-specific applications of the biofoam. The biofoam can be cooked, molded, layered, extruded, dissolved, or recooked, opening up possibilities to consider the entire material life cycle in the design process. We contribute design considerations to allow designers to “tune” the biofoam to the desired quality and characterize many aspects of the biofoam such as compression, spring back time, water permeability, and electrical conductivity. Finally, we discuss the unique opportunities this material and its life cycle bring to the design and HCI communities.
PUBLICATION
2020 – Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Netta Ofer, Shanel Wu, Mary Etta West, Mirela Alistar, and Laura Devendorf. 2022. Exploring Biofoam as a Material for Tangible Interaction. In Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1525–1539. https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3533494
PDF – Video presentation
EXHIBITIONS & FASHION SHOWS
- Chameleon Collection | 3D Fashion Week | Lima Fashion Week | 2022
- Almohadillas Inteligentes | 3D Fashion Week | Lima Fashion Week | 2022
DIS 2022: Demo Video
DIS 2022: Research Project Overview

Biofoam ingredients





DIS 2022: Video Presentation
3D FASHION WEEK LIMA-PERU: CHAMELEON COLLECTION