Emile De Visscher, designer, engineer, and young researcher at the service of ecological transitions

Emile De Visscher is a Junior Professor at ENS Paris-Saclay since October 1st, 2023. He is actively involved in the Teaching and Research Department (DER) in design, working with Master 1 and Master 2 Research programs, as well as in the CRD laboratory for research. He approaches his future research and teaching work at the School through ecological considerations. Let's hear from the young researcher. 

The role of contemporary design, and particularly design research, is to question and propose alternative societal models through artifacts, speculative scenarios, field tests, or new technologies. As such, our activity lies at the intersection of technical, social, and ecological considerations, giving it a pivotal position bridging social sciences with natural or engineering sciences.

EMILE DE VISSCHER, DESIGNER, ENGINEER, AND YOUNG TEACHING-RESEARCHER

Emile De Visscher initially studied mechanical engineering at the University of Technology of Compiègne, completing a dual Master's degree in materials science and industrial design. "Discovering design towards the end of my studies, I immediately realized that this field would become my preferred domain, especially because it introduced social, political, and even anthropological questions into the design of objects or technological solutions. However, I lacked experience and fundamental knowledge. Therefore, I continued my studies with the double Master's program "Innovation Design Engineering" at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, which I completed in 2012."

He then worked as an innovation project manager in a startup, and in 2014, he discovered research through design practice by undertaking a thesis within the Sciences Arts Création Recherche program, coordinated by the University Paris Sciences et Lettres, with academic affiliation to EnsAD. "This thesis, experimental in its format and content, used projects involving new materials and manufacturing processes (developed with Chimie ParisTech or ESPCI) to question the relationships between culture and technology, in the context of an ecological crisis and thus the politicization of production methods. After defending my thesis in 2018, I continued this research work directly at Humboldt University in Berlin as an associated researcher until 2023."

Rethinking models in the context of an ecological crisis, with an interdisciplinary vision

Emile De Visscher worked until 2023 as an associated researcher at Humboldt University in the Cluster of Excellence 'Matters of Activity' and maintains a connection with this laboratory as a partner member since taking up his position at ENS Paris-Saclay.

"In Germany, Clusters of Excellence are significant funding initiatives for thematic research over a limited duration of 7 years. 'Matters of Activity' brings together nearly 140 researchers from 40 different disciplines to explore the question of material activity and its implications for the fields of design, architecture, medicine, engineering, philosophy, and media theory.

The premise of the Cluster is as follows: the history of industrialization is primarily a story of 'passivation' of materials – the production of stable, solid, resistant, and isotropic materials such as stainless steel, reinforced concrete, MDF (medium-density fiberboard), or plastics. While these materials are highly useful for their controllability and resilience to external conditions, they directly contribute to the problems of waste and the Anthropocene layer we are currently discussing because they lack the capacity for evolution, transformation, decay, or nutrient provision for other processes.

By producing stable materials, we have ultimately removed their ability to evolve and participate in a cycle, as is the case in most biological processes. Therefore, it is necessary to envision other models that use active materials, which react to their environment, transform, combine, or degrade. One major research focus concerns wood and cellulose, for example, with the pine cone being taken as a paradigmatic example: an object that contains but can transform when the external conditions are met and becomes nutrients for future trees once its function is fulfilled. This logic is applied to technical artifacts, architectures, surgical intervention models, or theoretical models.

What characterizes the 'Matters of Activity' Cluster, beyond the question of its subject matter, is its radical interdisciplinarity. Rather than creating research groups based on disciplinary questions, the cluster is organized around technical actions (cutting, filtering, weaving, etc.), within which each discipline brings its own interpretations and fosters fruitful cross-fertilization to imagine new material paradigms."

Design Serving Ecological Transitions

 After his experience in Berlin, Émile De Visscher obtained a Junior Professorship (CPJ), a new type of position for French research institutions stemming from the 2020 Research Programming Law, equivalent to the international 'Tenure Track' model. 'A CPJ allows a researcher at the doctorate level or above to obtain a Junior Professor position for 6 years, accompanied by a production budget to conduct their research. The research and teaching activities carried out are then evaluated and, if validated, lead to a permanent position as a university professor or research director.' According to the Ministry of Education and Research, the objective of creating this framework was to recruit profiles that are more international, younger, and more interdisciplinary than through traditional channels. Being relatively young, coming from a German university, and with particularly interdisciplinary work, I believe I fit this hypothesis!

My Junior Professorship (CPJ) is titled: 'Design for Ecological Transitions'. 'Therefore, it is through ecological considerations that I approach the upcoming research and teaching work.'

The premise I share with the CRD laboratory is as follows: to achieve a sustainable society, it will not suffice to develop technologies that are more energy or resource efficient without changing our consumption habits. However, the idea that it would be possible to revert to a previous way of life (stop traveling, using communication technologies, eating certain foods, consuming goods, etc.) also does not seem desirable. Therefore, new practices must be designed, new models of life, production, transportation, consumption, and habitat that are both more sustainable and desirable.

The role of contemporary design, and particularly design research, is to question and propose alternative societal models, through artifacts, speculative scenarios, field tests, or new technologies. As a result, our activity lies at the intersection of technical, social, and ecological considerations, which also gives it a role in bridging social sciences with natural or engineering sciences.'

3 challenges in research: material, production, and participation

"In a context of ecological crisis, the question of the type of material involved in objects is crucial - and working on biological or durable materials is necessary. But often, this change doesn't just involve replacing a polluting material with another; it also implies changing our ways of conceiving, manufacturing, and using the corresponding objects. From the perspective of production, the question concerns scale: can we think, and under what conditions, of local production models that correspond to the challenges, resources, and limits of a territory, rather than using the industrial model which, by its nature, concentrates and deterritorializes production? 
Finally, the participatory aspect, of a collective understanding of the challenges of production and consumption, intersects with these considerations to provide grounded and tested projects. Because ultimately, despite all the academic evaluation models of research, the ultimate evaluation for design is that people adopt them, test the proposals through use, in their daily lives, in their contexts. These 3 axes intersect in concrete projects."

CREATE SYNERGIES AMONGST ACTORS

My position and experience naturally lean towards the question of research through projects, both in pedagogy to help students materialize their ideas, and in research for the development of technological or material proposals in connection with other departments of ENS Paris-Saclay or the University Paris-Saclay ecosystem.

Emile De Visscher is working on several projects simultaneously:

• A plastic recycling technology for humanitarian contexts (Polyfloss, see below).
• A ceramic manufacturing process (Petrification, see below).
• A project on distributed energy storage.
• Collaborative projects within the laboratory on contemporary design pedagogical models.
• A European project on the reactivation of abandoned production sites.

"Each of these projects involves technological research, scientific articles, as well as public presentations such as exhibitions or conferences. In this context, my goal is to establish connections with other departments of ENS or the University Paris-Saclay ecosystem, to propose scenarios related to cutting-edge research in the fields involved in these projects, whether they are in electrical or mechanical engineering, environmental studies, or materials performance analysis."

He participated in the Science Festival this year with a very special machine, the Polyfloss Factory. "I participated in the Science Festival just 5 days after starting my position! It was quite a magical moment, I must say. I presented the Polyfloss project, a project I have been leading for several years now. It is a plastic recycling machine that I invented with several fellow researchers, operating on the principle of cotton candy.

It transforms crushed plastic into fibers, collected into balls, similar to cotton candy. The fiber can then be used as is for packaging or thermal and acoustic insulation applications, or transformed like a textile (felting, spinning, weaving, etc.) or even melted again to obtain mono-material composites. The size of the machine (relatively small and transportable), its ease of use, as well as its versatility and robustness, make it a useful technology in humanitarian or development contexts, allowing the creation of local circular economies, where industrial or municipal waste management is not possible or simply not present. At this stage, we have conducted field research projects in different contexts: in Madagascar in a poor neighborhood of Antananarivo where a group of young people in reintegration created their own recycling business, at the Syrian border where a local NGO insulated nearly 30 migrant shelters with recycled material, or in Nepal where an NGO creates objects from recycled plastic for schools. This project is a good example of combining the research axes I detailed earlier: it combines work on new material forms, localized production adapted to the context, and participation of local populations in production, in a logic of community empowerment, which can then create their own economies. I plan to continue this project within the CPJ, as it is full of valuable lessons about the conditions for transferring and translating a research project into usage situations and contexts."

AN ENGAGED TEACHER-RESEARCHER

The school is committed to promoting equal opportunities and reinstating science at the heart of societal issues and ecological transition. How do these axes play a role in your research?

"In my view, design deals with the conditions of articulation between objects (in the broad sense) and humans. In the case of new technologies or scientific discoveries, design can thus play a crucial role in determining how this new entity will fit into society, who it will address, and how it will change everyday life.

I've already outlined this for ecological issues above, but it's also true for other scientific challenges. In the case of Artificial Intelligence, for example, design won't provide new calculation methods or structural improvements. However, it can speculate on new professions, on concrete uses, on possible drawbacks, and question the models of control that this technology may generate. And this translation of complex technologies into more or less speculative scenarios, involving everyday life, ways of living, eating, planning, moving, or working, is a political issue. Because it involves defining for whom, how, and with what governance models, a technology will transform society. Materializing these possible scenarios through objects, digital artifacts, films, texts, or installations is a way to open up technology to public debate, to provide access, and to collectively discuss the modalities of implementing these changes. Design, in this sense, is always political, as it addresses the question of shaping society through new objects or technologies. I am convinced that design can therefore play an important role in the axes pursued by the School."

Crafting ceramics using cellulose as the initial source

At the SACRe Festival 2023, Émile presented his project, which he has been working on since his thesis and continues within the framework of the Junior Professorship (CPJ), "Petrification". 

It is a new ceramic craft using cellulose as the initial source.

"Taking simple materials such as paper, rope, cardboard, or paper pulp, I developed a method, with the help of Chimie ParisTech, to infuse them with silica, and then undergo pyrolysis under controlled atmosphere to create Silicon Carbide, a rigid and refractory rock. The challenge of this project is both technical, to create a new craft based on accessible and simple materials, and conceptual, by questioning what should be preserved from our society, what we should perpetuate as technical artifacts or species on the verge of extinction. Petrification, as the transition from organic to inorganic, is a millennia-old question - present in myths as well as in video games. The project was presented as a sort of speculative archaeology, as if we had unearthed these objects in 100 years."

This festival is a doctoral program that brings together 5 art schools of PSL (Beaux-Arts de Paris, Conservatoire de musique, Conservatoire de théâtre, Arts Décoratifs, and La Fémis) and ENS Ulm to produce research theses through practice in art and design. 

"Launched in 2012, it's actually a bet that University PSL took, by positing that artists and designers, through their work, can produce knowledge useful to their field and other research fields. It is in this framework that I did my thesis, between 2014 and 2018." 

This program celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2023, with 120 doctors having graduated from it. 

"The SACRe Festival, held at La Gaîté Lyrique, was therefore an opportunity to share the results of this ambitious and exploratory adventure, combining an exhibition of 40 doctoral projects, a lecture series, continuous radio broadcasting, performances, film screenings, and workshops. The Festival was a real success, confirming the raison d'être of research in design through practice in my eyes."