San Francisco Design Week Awards 2024
Student Awards
An edible cookbook.
A dissolvable recipe book that reimagines nourishment through circular materials, sensory rituals, and zero-waste design.
CLASS
Berkeley Master of Design
Designing Emerging Technologies
SKILLS
Research
Recipe Creation
Materials Exploration Testing
TOOLS
Food-safe Paper Fabrication Ingredient Dehydration Laser Engraving
THE TEAM
Abigail Chen
Divya Srinivasan
Shameemah Fuseini-Codjoe
María-Teresa Carmier
TIMELINE
10 weeks
February - May 2024
Background
This project explores material as an emerging technology. It was designed with a mindset that encompasses the lifecycle of objects, looking at manufacturing techniques, material sourcing, end of life, durability, and joy of use.
How might herbal medicine be easy and joyful?
Process
Field Study
Our user research began in the kitchen, where we observed and interviewed individuals about their cooking habits and discovered a growing trend toward a more holistic approach to food—one that embraces rituals and natural remedies. We uncovered a recurring theme: for many, food is medicine, and cooking is a way of expressing care.
However, these meaningful practices are often clouded by the stress of complex recipes and the guilt of wasted ingredients. Rebrew was designed to ease that tension by reducing complexity and waste, while preserving the joy and intention behind these rituals.
Materials Exploration
Guided by this vision, we delved into herbal medicine, consulting a clinical herbalist who helped us identify ingredients suited for common ailments and shared their health benefits—insights that directly informed our recipes.
We began by locally sourcing and foraging our ingredients from the beautiful Bay Area. We performed experiments in which we dehydrated ingredients together in various ways, using different natural binders to create dissolvable papers.
