On the occasion of the Design Philadelphia Festival 2026 "Design Revolution", DumoLab has been invited to inhabit Suburban Station’s open-air lightwell with biomaterial research into the built environment through a site-specific installation.
Description: "Ramus Tree" is a semi-suspended architectural installation exploring the potential of large-scale 3D printing with cellulose–chitosan-based biomaterials. The project reuses and reconfigures our regenerative Ramus Dome leaf-like panels while introducing a new generation of programmed decay components. Together, these elements form a branching structure 4 meters in height, turning into an open, hanging spatial system. Ramus Tree investigates how bio-based materials can move beyond small-scale material experiments toward larger architectural applications. The project demonstrates how additive manufacturing can produce mechanically tunable, lightweight, geometrically differentiated panels that can be assembled, disassembled, and recombined. The system tests a set of weather-resistant panels to discern the capacity of cellulose–chitosan composites to perform under outdoor environmental exposure. Through the combination of material research, computational design, large-scale additive manufacturing, and reconfigurable assembly, Ramus Tree presents architecture as an evolving material system. It explores how renewable biomaterials might support future construction methods that are lightweight, materially efficient, and increasingly capable of operating in outdoor environments.
On View: October 3-30th, 2026, Center City, Suburban Station Courtyard.
Team: Led by Bowen Qin (PhD Student Arch), Jessy Xu (MArch Grad), Behzad Modanloo (PhD Candidate Arch), Begum Birol (PhD Student Arch), Kelly Rice (MSc Arch), and Dr Laia Mogas-Soldevila. With production and installation support from Rhada Iyer, Sophia Wang, Sophia Chen and Santiago Cortes.
Support: We are very grateful to logistics support from Trebor Adams and Jermaine Jenkins at DesignPhiladelphia. Materials development funding by Penn's University Research Foundation and the Johnson&Johnson Foundation.
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