Marjan graduated in 2012 from the Design Products course at the Royal College of Art and is currently based in London. Coming from a family of chemists, it isn’t surprising that her approach to design is mainly scientific albeit with a strong social value. Material research project Foam China came about while interning at the European Ceramic Work Centre in 2009. This light-weight and incredibly strong material creates a porcelain that expanded up to 300% of its original volume in the kiln.
After experimenting with different ingredients, kiln temperature, curves and types of molding she is now ready to think about upgrading the production scale and is also doing tests to integrate a glass top-layer. A further project is the Well Proven Chair which was nominated design of the year 2013 at the Design Museum. Created from a reaction of wood shavings and bio-resin Marjan worked in collaboration with James Shaw to apply this material to functional objects.
Another project titled The Energy Collection is dedicated to raising awareness about energy consumption. Collaborating with Solaronix to develop applications for their Dye Synthesised Solar Cells she found that this technology had the potential to change the way we relate to objects and embed energy harnessing into our daily habits. The research won first prize in the Dutch DOEN/Materiaal prijs and is currently in the Vitra Design Museum.
She has collaborated with many different companies and designers, including EPFL-Lab, The American Hardwood Export Council and Joris Laarman.