Lukas Klein is a designer and artist currently based in Cologne, Germany. His practice explores the intersection of material culture and environmental narratives, focusing on everyday materials, their contexts, systems of production, and ecological stories.
1.
For decades, designers have worked to increase the value of discarded plastic through reuse and recycling projects. Despite these efforts, or perhaps because of them, plastic production is set to increase, doubling or tripling over the next few decades, making such projects increasingly hopeless. The following projects deal with different approaches to synthetic plastics.
2.
Wood has long been used to communicate ideas of authenticity, endurance, and connection to nature. In everyday life, its surfaces invite trust and familiarity, carrying emotional weight that few other materials achieve. Yet much of what we recognize as wood today is mediated—patterns reproduced, synthetic veneers applied, grains imitated. The following projects take this ambiguity as a starting point, exploring how the appearance of wood shapes our perceptions of nature and design.
3.
Mining waste is more than leftover matter; it is a record of human intervention that reshapes landscapes and ecologies. For designers, it offers not only a material to work with but a conceptual space where questions of value, responsibility, and aesthetics come into focus. It asks us to think critically about what we make, how we make it, and what is left behind.
4.
A collection of projects, attended workshops and residencies that do not fit into any of the other categories.
