Joris Laarman’s SYMBIO at Friedman Benda Envisions a Regenerative Future

This spring, Joris Laarman returns to New York with “SYMBIO,” a major solo exhibition at Friedman Benda that reflects years of experimentation at the crossroads of design, ecology, and advanced technology. On view from May 8 through July 24, 2026, the exhibition introduces two new bodies of work that expand the possibilities of contemporary design through living systems, biodegradable materials, and computational form-making. Presented nearly a decade after the designer’s celebrated retrospective at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, “SYMBIO” offers a compelling portrait of a practice that continues to evolve with rare vision and technical daring.

For more than two decades, Laarman has pursued a language of design that feels at once futuristic and deeply organic. Through the work of his Amsterdam-based studio, Joris Laarman Lab, he has continually transformed emerging technologies into objects infused with emotional and sculptural presence. In “SYMBIO,” that sensibility reaches a striking new chapter.

Sculpting a New Material Language

At the heart of the exhibition is the Ply Loop series, which includes a chair, console, freestanding bookcase, and wall shelf. Built through an intricate process that combines hand assembly with digital design and fabrication techniques, the works reimagine plywood as a fluid and expressive material. Their looping geometries appear almost grown rather than constructed, carrying the graceful rhythm of branches, bone structures, or woven fibers.

What distinguishes the series further is the material innovation beneath its elegant surfaces. The works are created using an experimental biodegradable resin that opens new possibilities for engineered wood. Rather than treating sustainability as a secondary consideration, Laarman integrates it directly into the structural and aesthetic identity of each piece. Oak and walnut veneers curve into complex forms that feel both ancient and technologically advanced, embodying a renewed relationship between craftsmanship and material science.

Behold furniture that transcends function alone. Each work inhabits space like a sculptural presence while quietly pointing toward scalable approaches to regenerative design.

Living Surfaces and Carbon-Storing Concrete

A second body of work, also titled Symbio, introduces a series of benches conceived in active partnership with the environment around them. Produced through 3D-printing technologies, the benches are made from an innovative concrete mixture designed to permanently store carbon. The material signals a major shift within sustainable construction practices, transforming concrete from a source of emissions into a medium capable of environmental contribution.

Laarman deepens this ecological conversation by embedding bio-active substrates into recessed channels across the benches’ surfaces. These channels encourage the growth of mosses and lichens over time, allowing the works to evolve through contact with the natural world. Rather than remaining static objects, the benches become living structures shaped by climate, moisture, and organic growth.

The patterns guiding these channels draw inspiration from the reaction-diffusion systems first described by mathematician Alan Turing. Laarman adapts these mathematical formations into visual pathways that symbolize interconnectedness between architecture, biology, craft, and computation. The resulting surfaces possess a quiet vitality, as though the objects themselves are participating in a process of transformation.

The Vision Behind Joris Laarman Lab

Since graduating from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2003, Laarman has built a career defined by curiosity and invention. Together with his partner Anita Star, he founded Joris Laarman Lab in Amsterdam, assembling a multidisciplinary team of coders, engineers, and craftspeople whose work traverses artificial intelligence, robotic fabrication, augmented reality, and parametric modeling.

Across these experiments, nature has remained a constant source of inspiration. Laarman’s works often mirror evolutionary systems and biological structures while embracing the possibilities of cutting-edge technologies. This synthesis has made him one of the defining creative voices of contemporary design, with works held in the permanent collections of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 

His work has also been recognized through distinctions such as the Wall Street Journal Innovator of the Year Award and the European Commission’s STARTS Prize, affirming the broad cultural influence of his investigations into technology and design.

A Wider Presence in Venice

Coinciding with the New York exhibition, Laarman’s works from the Maker and Microstructures series will appear in The Only True Protest is Beauty, the inaugural presentation from the Fondazione Dries Van Noten in Venice, opening April 25, 2026. The parallel presentations underscore the international momentum surrounding the designer’s practice and his expanding role within conversations around art, sustainability, and innovation.