found associations reimagines future café as bio laboratory at paris design week

Found Associations explores the café as a material ecosystem

For Paris Design Week 2026, four Latvian designers and artists partnered with Kalve Coffee to explore the café as a small-scale material ecosystem, where by-products generated through everyday consumption become starting points for new forms of production. The project brings together biodesign and circular economy principles through a connected chain of material experiments, turning the café into both a source of materials and a laboratory for their transformation. Three substances generated through the café’s daily operation, used coffee grounds, dirty water, and excess foamed milk, move through a series of treatment and production stages. The output of one experiment becomes the input for the next, creating a continuous chain in which materials change their function and form.

The first stage is a water filtration system by Mārtiņš Mežulis. Discarded coffee grounds are transformed through pyrolysis into biochar together with CharcoTec and subsequently treated with steam with the help of Yang Liu from Eindhoven University of Technology. The resulting activated carbon is then used to experiment with filtering dirty water collected in the excess water reservoir of a coffee machine. Part of the filtered water is used in the installation’s next stage, Milk Glue by Katrīna Tīna Smilga. Leftover foamed milk is heated and acidified, separating it into curds and water. The curds are collected, dried, and milled into a fine powder, producing a new material that can mimic the qualities of a glue-like substance. Līva Sakārne’s contribution combines used and dried coffee grounds with the milk glue and a small amount of previously filtered water to create a moldable material. Pressed into wooden molds, the mixture becomes takeaway and drink-in coffee trays with organic shapes inspired by spilled liquid. During the exhibition, some of these trays become part of Kalve Coffee’s everyday service, replacing the conventional trays used by customers and bringing the material experiment directly into the café’s daily operation. The material chain also takes a sculptural form. Dirty water is combined with glycerin and resin to create interior elements that appear to capture the movement of water. Paula Punkstiņa’s amber-colored surfaces incorporate another by-product of the café into the spatial environment, extending the material experiments beyond functional objects.

Found Associations – view from outside, setting up the | all images ©Collective Found Associations

continuous material chain links consumption and production

The connections between the individual processes form the central structure of Found Associations. Instead of presenting the materials as separate experiments, the project links them through a sequence in which each process provides material for the next. Low-tech techniques are combined with laboratory-based methods, demonstrating different approaches to transforming the by-products of café consumption. The exhibition’s title, Found Associations, refers to the need to create new interpretations when working with excess materials. The project considers not only their visual and sensory qualities, but also the language traditionally used to describe discarded materials. By looking beyond the familiar category of ‘waste,’ the designers examine how these substances can acquire different functions and material identities.

Found Associations presents the café as an experimental model of circular economy, connecting consumption directly with production. Coffee grounds become a filter, milk becomes an adhesive, and water becomes a spatial material, establishing the café itself as a setting for continuous material experimentation and new associations.

Found Associations – exhibition with Kalve Coffee interior