Wine lees dyes. © Caroline Grellier
For Makery, Caroline Grellier, designer from the Parisian Ecole Boule, keeps the diary of her project of viticulture by-products upgrading. A new step forward has been made with the dual support from Agro Valo Méditerranée, science incubator, and Alter’Incub, specialised in social innovation.
January, its chilling wind and winter illnesses… Despite half of the month spent under my duvet, I had to get to work, since I am the only one leading the project of Cooperative for the waste recovery of viticulture materials (CMVV), and my to do list it getting bigger every day…rather a good sign.
A scientific and strategic co-support
Whilst waiting to extend the team, I am moving forward on my own… but well supported. My objective for January? Ratifying a co-incubation of Agro Valo Méditerranée (for the scientific support of Sup’Agro, public establishment of a scientific, cultural and professional character, under the administration of the direction of education and research of the French ministry of Agriculture, Food-processing industry and Forests) and Alter’Incub, incubator specialized in social innovation (for support on the setting up of the project as a whole).
This has been done thanks to a successful audition in front of Alter’Incub with representatives from Scops, social innovation organizations, and financing actors from the Languedoc-Roussillon department. The audition will bring me to attend a mini training program in order to meet and exchange views with other entrepreneurs. A way to acquire near-barbaric vocabulary for me such as business model, market research, cost price, in fact the jargon of the perfect entrepreneur.
Design + research + agro-materials
After months behind the computer monitoring the competition and presenting the project to tens of people from all horizons, I am really eager to push open the doors of the lab, put my hands back into wine lees, play with grape marc and peel vine shoots, to rediscover at last these vine fragrances that tickled my nostrils for nearly one year.
I wish to make this project a reality to create the job that is right for me, whilst defending my vision of the role that design can play in the issue of upgrading agro-resources and having the opportunity to plan relevant and creative applications from developed materials. In this instance, my role as a designer is therefore to be a true guide on the project, an intermediary between the researcher-engineer who co-designs the material and the creator who uses it. I am convinced of the value of having a multidisciplinary team that brings together on a technical level the fields of engineering, research, design, and agriculture.
It is about associating design to research at every step of the design of the agro-material in order to encourage creative stimulus in the early stages of the project, so as to boost the innovation process of product design, inherent to the potential of the material used. In my opinion, this design/applied research duo is what is significant.
If I claim my material maker approach is an empirical, intuitive and open research, carried out in total autonomy and with no scientific claim, the challenge is now to validate the technical and economic viability of the project and check to what extent production can change scale by moving from the garage or the fablab to industrial series production. How does one optimise a process? To what extent does a material resist high pressure? How much time will the colour inherent to anthocyanins (natural pigments) hold? Can one genuinely contemplate an industrial production on this half-product? How does one manage the deterioration of matter over time? So many unresolved questions with which I can soon gently hassle my research partner.
Where is innovation?
«Our agricultural wealth will also allow the development of new materials.» 2030 Innovation Contest
CMVV is not just about the development of viticulture agro-materials. Innovation remains for sure in the production of new materials that did not exist until now, but also and especially in the economic model strategy to be set up and in the way of involving the field actors in a Cooperative society of public interest. I am looking to develop a multi-faceted model, half way between the fablab and the R&D centre, between the resource centre and the micro-factory. It is a matter of balance, between market and non-market values, monetary or not.
This issue of the economic model is particularly interesting to study in other contexts: fablabs emerging in Western Africa are incidentally inspiring emerging models for me. I am also wondering about the limits of patents, having been immersed in African fablabs in a culture of the free, dear to these makers. It is this specific reflection, carried out in parallel with R&D work with Sup’Agro and the future support of Alter’Incub, that keeps me busy everyday.
My program for February: leave behind this project leader loneliness by participating in A green Startup from February the 27th until March the 1st at the 2015 “Salon de l’Agriculture” (Paris Agricultural Show). Take note makers, farmers, finance experts, computer specialists, salesmen, dentists, gardeners, pensioners or students! See you at La start’up est dans le pré (the start-up is in the field) to contribute to the project during that week-end or even more. All brains are welcome!