Echoes of Future Matter: A Panel on Co-Invention and Material Futures

Panel Description:

How do we design for a world that doesn’t yet exist? In this interdisciplinary panel, creators and technologists from the Echoes of Future Matter exhibition come together to explore the evolving relationship between materiality, emerging technologies, and speculative design. Rooted in San Francisco’s layered ecological and cultural contexts, this panel invites reflection on how design can move beyond aesthetics to act as a speculative and systems-based tool for transformation.

Moderated by architect and educator Andrei Hakhovich (Gradient Matter), the discussion will feature:

• Alexey Dubov, Co-Founder of BuildTech VC and Mighty Buildings, pioneer in 3D-printed sustainable housing;
• Daghan Cam, Co-Founder of Aibuild, known for AI-driven robotic fabrication;
• Oluseun Taiwo, Co-Founder of Solideon, a startup behind autonomous micro-factories;
• Damaso Mayer, Founder of Estudio Material, artistic and design practice is defined by an exploration of often overlooked and raw materials;
• Thom Faulders, founder of Faulders Studio, an award-winning, multidisciplinary architecture and design practice based in Oakland, California.
• To anchor the dialogue in practice, each panelist will contribute a tangible design piece or artifact from their work.

Together, they will share insights into how design and technology co-evolve in practice—from robotic additive manufacturing and generative tools to embodied craft processes—and how these collaborations generate new modes of making and meaning.

Attendees will leave with a broadened view of how architecture, objects, and spatial experiences can become instruments for ecological intelligence, poetic speculation, and creative provocation.

Panel Format:

Moderated conversation followed by a 15-minute audience Q&A.

Target Audience:

Designers, architects, technologists, artists, researchers, and anyone interested in the future of making.

Learning Outcomes:
• Understand how digital and manual fabrication techniques can be hybridized.
• Gain insight into how emerging technologies are transforming the material landscape.
• Learn how speculative design can drive cross-disciplinary innovation.
• Explore new models for collaboration between designers, technologists, and investors.