Transcription of Marine Plant-Based University with Studio Kathryn Larsen:

Alissa Miky: Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for watching the Marine Plant Based University. Today I have another, another wonderful guest. So thank you so much for joining, Katherine. So could you please introduce a little bit about yourself?

Kathryn Larsen: My name is Katherine Larson. I’m an architect in Denmark. And I’m known as the seaweed girl or tankeen in Danish because of my interest working with marine bio based materials and architecture.

Alissa Miky: Beautiful. So how long have you, you know, it’s your company, right? Yeah. Congratulations. When did you start your company?

Kathryn Larsen: I think I first kind of had the idea for my company in 2019. I had just been invited to Dutch Design Week for my thesis project, which focused on seagrass construction and come trying to come up with a way that you could prefabricate it for the building industry.

And. That was kind of the first moment where I felt like, okay, I felt like maybe my ideas are good enough that I should have my own business. But I think for a variety of reasons, it took me another four years to really get started. So I had to move to the Netherlands to do my master’s degree. I actually started the first iteration of my company there as a little design and art studio in the Netherlands.

And then I moved back to Denmark and then in the summer, I actually created a limited liability company for the first time and also a holding company.

Alissa Miky: Wow. Good for you. Congratulations. So, you know, I have a lot of questions about this because, you know, which is so unique that like, I, I met so many, you know, marine plant based startups or the founder or the researcher, mostly they use seaweed for the ingredients or the food use or the product use, but how come you decided to create an into architecture, which is so unique?

What, what came your idea?

Kathryn Larsen: Actually, what my idea came from actually Wasn’t unique. I found that historically bunches of cultures were using seaweed and also seagrass as a building material. So like in Japan, you have noritsuchi, which are like the clay walls where you would mix in the glue from seaweed into the plaster, which would keep the plaster wetter for a longer period of time.

And in Denmark, seaweed was used as the base of paints. And all around the world, seagrass was used as an insulation material to stuff mattresses and to thatch roofs. And what I found was because We have industrialization today, we use a lot of polymers, a lot of this knowledge kind of died out. But luckily in Denmark, there was still an active group of people still keeping these traditions alive.

And I was able to learn directly from these people. And after I had learned from them I started to experiment with it and also try to think of how can we actually incentivize people to use these materials again? Are there ways that I can make it easier for people to accept these materials and buildings because they are really good materials.

Alissa Miky: Wow, but especially I was actually so surprised when I saw your Instagram is this is also made from seaweed.

Kathryn Larsen: Yes,

Alissa Miky: My goodness, this is beautiful. I, I, again, like, as I know that there’s separate companies or separate countries they use for the semen or those kind of you know, how to say, like a mod, you know, situation.

But I haven’t seen any of the, you know, the people who created this beautiful design work. How do you match with that? That’s so unique.

Kathryn Larsen: I Started working with the bioplastics like the homemade bioplastics and a lot of other designers were using it in the textile industry. So they were making like high fashion out of it and the idea that it can biodegrade, you can put it in the soil and it will break down and it will compost.

And I was looking at it as an architect and I was holding it up to the light and I was just amazed with the transparency of it. So I started creating these lamps out of it and these like structures out of it. And I was also in the Netherlands where. There was a bunch of stained glass on the facade.

So I actually started studying like the stained glass. And of course, these days in the Netherlands and in Denmark, people are really concerned about the carbon footprint of things. So to make stained glass, it’s very energy intensive. So I started making these art installations with the bioplastic and people are so shocked because they assume that it’s metal and it’s, and it’s glass, but actually it’s wood and it’s agar, agar, and then you are genius.

Yeah, and I also developed my own paint out of the glue from seaweed and combined it with microalgae pigments. And I started to also paint the wood with these these bases that I was making. And again, I was inspired by like the Jainist traditions of using these glue paints, but instead of using pigments that were synthetic or extracted from the earth, I was using microalgae.

Alissa Miky: Wow. So you, you always like invent, you know, invent from the scratch then?

Kathryn Larsen: Yeah, I, because I was painting for such a long time, I kept a sketchbook for the last ten years just sketching and painting. At a certain point, I just thought, well, maybe I should start to experiment and create my own paints from scratch.

Maybe I have control over the consistency or, you know, so I started to do that.

Alissa Miky: I think there was a lot of headache in the, in the past four years. What was your most difficult thing in your, in this four years?

Kathryn Larsen: I think the most difficult thing was that I had a lot of resistance against me. I went to construction education in Denmark because I ran out of money for architecture school in the U.

S. And then because I had studied at an, an Avers Academy, which is considered, like, a college, not, like, a university, when I managed to get into my master’s degree. I actually got an email from the school telling me that I actually technically didn’t qualify and that I should not attend because it might be too difficult for me, but that they couldn’t rescind my admissions because it was technically their bad.

So I think to have all that pressure put on me and to think like I don’t belong here. I had to work very, very hard to make myself feel like okay. Like, I belong here. I’m supposed to be an architect. I’m supposed to do these things, these strange things with seaweed and experiment with it and develop in this way because nobody else is doing it.

And it’s unique to me. So I think it took me a long time to feel, yeah, like I was, yeah, good enough in the architecture industry. And I think after going through that process, also having to work two jobs. To pay for school and everything. I just wanted to create a company where anyone can come in and thrive, where they have, you know, the toolkit and the support that they need to be able to be successful in the industry.

So now I have a bunch of young people on my staff and we’re all different backgrounds, all working for this architecture company that also works with these natural materials and biodesign and biotechnology. And we all come from such different perspectives with them working together. We can create these really beautiful projects.

Alissa Miky: I love it. I love that story. Honestly, our company has a similar situation that we really care about not just the environment, but also the equality. So I, I’m so on the same page. I’m so glad we met on like online. I would love to meet you soon in the future and face to face. I can imagine that we’re going to talk about two hours or three hours straight.

We, we, we probably cannot like. I, I really wanted to like meet you in the future, but the thing is so unique. So you have a lot of, you know, the architect background and what, then what’s your next dream? What do you want it to achieve through your activity?

Kathryn Larsen: I’ve always wanted to see a lot of my ideas, like these smaller material experiments in a larger scale, like in a building or in a home.

I’m starting to experiment now with that. Trying to get it into actual physical buildings instead of just these smaller installations. And it’s been very, very difficult because it’s always very difficult when you are an architect to try and find clients that are interested in it. I think I’ve been pitching my services like to other companies, like, Hey, would you like us?

I’m from seaweed, you know, a lot of people are like who’s this crazy lady, you know,

Alissa Miky: I can imagine that situation because for them, the investment is a huge money for them. So they probably wanted to get like a historical way and they feel that it’s going to be historical. Like missiles can be like safe and not going to destroy that.

Well, that makes. So how many times like, so what kind of a, you know, house or building are you, are you planning to create right now?

Kathryn Larsen: Right now I’m working on a renovation project where maybe we can use some of these materials in the interior and We’ll see if it develops. It’s always a question of budgeting and funding and stuff.

So that’s where I’m starting, but I would love if I’m able to get it into, you know, hotel lobbies for maybe the furniture or the lighting fixtures are from these materials instead because they have one of the highest turnover rates for interiors. So I think it makes sense maybe to have some of it be more from more sustainable materials, more natural materials.

So I would like to also, yeah, get it into more commercial spaces or design pop ups or window installations. So that at the end of the day, you know, it can, yeah, have a second life maybe. Aw, that’s beautiful. So

Alissa Miky: especially what kind of furniture can you make then? Like you make table or chairs or?

Kathryn Larsen: You can do all sorts of things.

I usually I use the seagrass as stuffing. You can use it in upholstery as an upholstery material. You can also you can combine it with a glue and use it kind of like a wood like material. I actually don’t do that so much because the seaweed. Or seagrass tends to hold such so much moisture that it can warp it can actually be stronger and warp the glue binder with it.

So it can be really challenging to actually use it as a wood material. Yeah, there’s all sorts of things you can do. You can also even extract, I think, the nanocellulose from seaweed and turn it into a textile. Yeah, through like a live cell process. I think that’s possible as well. So there’s all kinds of things that you can do.

It’s very interesting. And of course, as a designer, I just want to experiment with that, you know, I didn’t know that.

Alissa Miky: You know, I met again, a lot of like seaweed or marine plant based company in the past, but you’re all so unique. And I love how you always put an into another box. How can you, you know, always, you know, get the new idea.

Kathryn Larsen: I actually take a lot of inspiration again from sketching and from traveling and going different places and then also from talking to really old crafts people. So like grandpa and grandma seaweed.

Alissa Miky: Do you have your grandpa grandma seaweed people around you?

Kathryn Larsen: Yeah, I take so much inspiration from like the older generation because they remember a lot of how things used to be done. And then, you know, a lot of times they actually share their wisdom with me. And then I feel like even though I’m maybe from a different country or, you know, my Danish has an accent, you know, there’s There’s a, you know, there’s something we have in common here and then I can learn from them.

So yeah, I learned directly so much from the seagrass farmers in Denmark that are very old and they’re the last people that kind of were doing it 50 years ago and then the industry collapsed and then they’re the ones responsible for bringing it back to Denmark now and teaching more people and training more people how to farm seagrass in Denmark.

Alissa Miky: Oh, you’re then you’re definitely the hero for the lot of grandpa grandmas then I love I don’t know if

Kathryn Larsen: I’m a hero I just I really enjoy learning from them and they they know so much and a lot of times the stuff that they know it’s not stuff that’s written down so. Sometimes I will visit, you know, people and then they’ll show me something that they found in a wall cavity and they’ll be like, Oh, this is like seagrass.

And I found it in this wall over here. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing from an architecture history perspective. And it’s not written anywhere.

Alissa Miky: But I can imagine your situation. I had a, I always have the same experience when I go back to Japan, Japan, as you know, like Japan is a, you know, longevity, number one longevity country in the, in this earth right now. And they have tons of like seaweed technology in local companies. Like when I go there, like.

I haven’t seen this yet. I totally feel the same way. All right, so we only have five more minutes. I’m gonna ask one more question. Yeah, it’s time, time flies fast. I know we need to talk more. We need to like, you know, talk three hours, four hours. Definitely. Let’s do that in the future. But again, I’m so sorry.

We only have five more minutes. So for the last question, um, I’m actually, I’m asking to everybody for this question. Do you have any message for the audience? You can always, you can also, you know, introduce your Instagram or whatever. Or could you please also give me the message who wanted to involve to the seaweed industry?

Kathryn Larsen: I Think my message is that seaweed is such a fantastic material, but a lot of people think that it’s infinitely regenerative. And I think I’ve found through my work that actually we have to make sure that we also protect it as a resource and that we don’t overextract it. It’s really important to be aware of what we’re taking from nature and make sure that we’re also giving back to it.

So, yeah, that’s why I work with a lot of farmers for seaweed who grow their own seaweed because. Yeah. I try to make sure I source responsibly.

Alissa Miky: Beautiful. And what’s your Instagram account? What kind of like, you know thing do you want it to explain? Which account do you want it to show to the audience?

Kathryn Larsen: You can find me at the seaweed girl or my company work at studio Catherine Larson.

Alissa Miky: Beautiful. Thank you so much, Catherine. Can’t wait to see you soon. Thank you.