3 Reasons Why The Lab Trend Is Relevant Now

Posted By Gudy Herder / May 22, 2019 / 0 Comments

Why is clinical design in architecture, interior & product design so on-vogue leading us to a Lab Trend?

Let’s put three relevant fields that deliver similar patterns under the microscope. But before we analyze the beauty, food and digital world, a few more words on common characteristic we see in this trend.

The trend main focus is on creating clinical and futuristic environments, almost “modern monasteries for science” for a specific sector.

The increasing presence of digital technology in our everyday life has triggered the need for the creation of spaces where touching, experimentation and alchemical playfulness are the key concepts and audience is invited to engage with the process of how to find personalized formulas.”

- Eclectic Trends



The trend is now evolving towards a more critical approach, capable of questioning issues related to science, technology and sustainability. Lab-grown skins are now used within the cosmetic industry to end to end the testing on animals, which is not just  an ethical choice but a practical one, as these skins are much better simulation of human skin. Environmental awareness is also behind the cruelty-free leathers created in laboratories that can provide new, usually vegan, materials.

Lab-grown luxury is developing  fast: biotech and innovative techniques are implemented to create luxury materials, such as low carbon footprint diamonds or craft protein-based silk weaved in laboratories, such as Stella McCartney’s silk made by the California-based lab Bolt Threads.


The beauty industry has its fair share with a strong geographic focus on South Corea. As customers recur more and more to social media for their makeup routine inspiration, companies have focused on enhancing their products customization and personalization at the point to allow their customers to create them at home. Also, the increased importance of inclusive beauty conversations  and the need for “clean” products around the globe are leaving their mark on the beauty industry. Last but not least, as beauty and health are becoming almost synonims, part of our society has started to see wellness and lifestyle as problems to be “bio-hacked” to optimize one’s health.

3 Reasons Why The Lab Trend Is Relevant Now 3 Reasons Why The Lab Trend Is Relevant Now

XYZ Formula flagship store by WGNB Architects

XYZ Formula is a Korean beauty brand whose aim is to help its customers to grow their natural beauty applying their holistic approach. The flagship store WGNB created for the brand is inspired by this philosophy.  XYZ Formula – the representing image of which is moisture products – was designed with the storytelling of ‘Permeate’ embodied in the facade. Besides, design worth special note is gradation of purple and orange connected linearly and related colors being transparently adorned in each corner of space, causing a brilliant linkage with the goal of the brand. Space of XYZ Formula has been represented based on the gradation of its colors ranging from purple to orange in a bid to highlight rhythmical, vitality and gorgeous spatial atmosphere. This has significant and sufficient implications as space visualizing diverse images and stories coming from dimmed border of colors. The overall effect is that of a welcoming yet iper-tech laboratory able to hack the inner beauty we hold inside.

Photographs Yongjoon Choi

3 Reasons Why The Lab Trend Is Relevant Now

3 Reasons Why The Lab Trend Is Relevant Now

Scentiment by Teddy Schuyers

The Scentiment kit created by Teddy Schuyers is a set for making your own perfume at home starting from this simple consideration: a bottle of the famous Chanel No. 5 perfume sells for almost €90 in the store, but the scent itself only costs €2.13 to make. So why not making it? The kit can be used to distil fragrant oils from natural ingredients like orange peel, flowers or pine needles. Then, it’s a matter of mixing your favourites to suit your mood and personal preferences. The Sentiment comes with the necessary glassware, flasks, condensers and a pastel-colored stand that will make the distilling process look less like a science class experiment and more like an artistic performance.

Photographs by Naomi Jamie Studio
Copyright Design Academy Eindhoven


Fast Food Aid by Kaibutsu

Fast Food Aid was the first supplement pop-up shop that aimed to replace the missing nutrients from fast foods such as hamburgers, pizza or ramen. Designed by  Ikkyu and Junya Sato of studio Kaibutsu, the shop is doesn’t look like other pharmacies  but has an educational purpose: pills were free for customers to take. They just needed to give the receipt for their last fast food meal and they would receive the right supplements by a health professional. Kaibutsu  created the shop design by coexisting the street atmosphere and a mad laboratory atmosphere. The space had to feel like an antiseptic room.



The “lab to table” trend is on the rise. From one side, it is encouraged by the playfulness of the sci-fi craftsmanship, that allows us to create our own food and drinks at home as if we were alchemist or scientists. On the other, it is the tangible rise of the “Agriculture 2.0” where a “new generation of farmers” is mainly focused on the consumers’ needs: ” future-proof” food that are cruelty-free, ethical options able to produce little or no environmental costs for the Planet.


Twist by Pinch Food Design

TWIST collection by Pinch Food Design is a modular design showcasing the art of cocktail making. Composed by the Moda Bar with 3 additional cocktail activations. The design focuses on creating a playful experience for guests where they can immerse in a journey driven by the 4 senses.


Atoma by Alexandra Genis

ATOMA is a collection of spices which create flavour through single molecules created by Alexandra Genis, a Food Designer.

According to Genis, ´no artificial aroma’ labels have become a norm in the marketing of contemporary food products. However, nature can neither produce nor sustain the amounts of citrus, strawberries, vanilla and many more, required for flavouring all the products on supermarket shelves. Is it justifiable to use up resources for natural flavouring of industrial food products such as ice cream, cake and potato chips?

About 11000 aroma molecules are known to science, of which more than 2000 are used by food companies to manufacture the flavour profiles of everyday products. Those so called ‘volatile compounds’ are found in complex constellations in all natural foods but can also be recreated in the lab.

The project adapts industrial molecules for convenient use in domestic cooking. The 3D printed chemical formula of a molecule is casted from colored cocoa-butter infused with same compound. The finished spice can easily be rasped over a food of choice on its own or in combination with any other molecule. The first set of spices consists of 24 molecules which all together are responsible for the flavor of a strawberry. Public accessibility of molecules is aimed at demystifying industry while also preparing consumers for future scenarios of limited resources. From domestic kitchens acceptance of new culinary patterns can take place.


Bistro In Vitro by Koert Mensvoort 

Bistro In Vitro is a fictitious restaurant with a menu of in vitro dishes that may one day end up on your plate. Created by Dutch artist and philosopher Koert Mensvoort, the restaurant proposes a virtual menu based on food that could be possibly lab-grown in the future. At Bistro In Vitro, chefs prepare exclusive cuts of meat, cultured and prepared with surprising flavors and textures that you would never encounter in the wild. By exploring and pushing the boundaries of our food culture they want to do away with the idea that cultured meat is an inferior meat substitute. That is why they serve you a digital selection of sustainable, animal friendly, exciting and delicious dishes that will prompt thought and discussion on in vitro meat.



With digital reality, in all its declinations, taking such a big slice in our lives, the lines between the physical and the digital have started to blur. Craftsmanship has been updated thanks to the application of digital knowledge to investigate alternative eco materials that can be produced in a lab studio while sci-fi laboratories become the new retailer spaces.



The Shell works by Ed Jones, Insiya Jafferjee, Amir Afshar and Andrew Edwards

The Shell Works is a project by four designers from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College. Ed Jones, Insiya Jafferjee, Amir Afshar and Andrew Edwards have been working on a series of machines able to transform seafood waste from lobster shells into recyclable, biodegradable bioplastic. The paper-like fascinating material could work as a sustainable alternative to single-use plastics. The material is obtained by mixing vinegar and chitin, the bio-polymer that builds the exoskeleton of crustaceans and the cell walls of fungi. Though very abundant in nature, chitin needs to be chemically extracted to be available for any application. For this reason, the four designers created a series of machines able to transform the lobster shells into different objects. Shelly, Sheety, Vaccy, Dippy and Drippy – the five machines – have been designed to offer complete control over each parameter of the process in order to allow for further experimentation at the polymer level of the material.Â Although made from waste lobster shells, the new material is actually hypoallergenic in its plastic form.

3 Reasons Why The Lab Trend Is Relevant Now
3 Reasons Why The Lab Trend Is Relevant Now

Desintegra.me by Margarita Talep

Desintegra.me by Margarita Talep is a project focused on the production of different types of bioplastics manufactured through raw material extracted from algae. The project seeks to replace single-use plastics as their useful life does not exceed 40 minutes and their degradation can last 500 years or more. Currently, this type of plastic corresponds to 40% of plastic waste around the world. Given this, why do we allocate an indestructible material to objects that are quickly disposable?

How do we dispense with plastic in situations in which its use is ephemeral and its utility is mini- mal?

The lack of sustainable materials together with the growing plastic pollution in the world motivated me to look for concrete alternatives. The material is dyed with extracts of fruits and vegetables, blueberry skin, purple cabbage, beet, carrot, among others, in this way the material that is generated is as natural as possible. This helps in that its biodegradation is done in the shortest possible time. This material is a sustainable alternative to packaging, especially dry food or objects, its versatility allows us to generate different types of bioplastics, some more rigid and others more flexible, only altering the proportions of the mixture.

3 Reasons Why The Lab Trend Is Relevant Now
3 Reasons Why The Lab Trend Is Relevant Now

United Cycling by Johannes Torpe Studio

A dull industrial building from the 1990s has been transformed into a retail experience and Head Quarters for the Danish agency of Argon 18-bicycles, United Cycling by Johannes Torpe Studio. The company goal was to make it a Nordic hub for the sport. With this idea in mind, Torpe created a retail space that fosters knowledge, learning and innovation and perhaps even more importantly, inspires people to dream.

The showroom is designed to elevate the bicycles and display their sovereignty. It is a space that offers an invitation to admire the products for their technical superiority, to inspect and touch them. All elements in the showroom and the product gallery follow the same gridlines. The combination of precision and the very technical products on display creates a clinical yet ethereal atmosphere almost like entering a sci-fi laboratory. One wall is a customised illuminated display for 8 bikes and suspended from the ceiling are five pantographs that elegantly display a selection of bicycle prototypes. With the click of a button they can be lowered down for inspection by the customer. Mechanical, old fashioned and tactile all at once. Five display elements with lit surfaces and a cabinet box allows customers to take a closer look and feel of the individual bike parts.


No Description

Related Posts

No comments

No comments

Leave a reply


%d bloggers like this: