ZSOFIA
KOLLAR

Building new material categories

I am the founder and CEO of Human Material Loop, a materials science company transforming human hair waste into high performance keratin materials.

Human hair is produced everywhere people live, yet almost all of it is discarded. Human Material Loop began by questioning why such a technically interesting biological material had no meaningful industrial system around it.

Today, we are developing technologies that turn this overlooked resource into scalable materials for industry. Our first commercial material is ādara®, a keratin based textile fibre developed for commercial interiors.

But the ambition extends beyond a single fibre. I believe the next generation of material companies will not simply make existing materials slightly better. They will identify resources that industry has ignored and build entirely new material categories around them.

Waste is not simply a disposal problem. It is an industrial design opportunity.

Hair is a biological material made primarily from keratin. It grows continuously, is cut continuously, and is discarded globally every day.

We are building the technology and infrastructure required to bring this resource back into productive use. Through patented biotechnology, Human Material Loop transforms hair waste into high performance keratin materials, beginning with applications in textiles and commercial interiors.

The company sits between waste management, biotechnology, material science, textile manufacturing, and design.

Circularity is not a product feature. It is an ecosystem.

Objects shape us too

'Object-Oriented Identity: Cultural belongings from our recent past' is a journey through objects and identities. Through curiosity, it helps discover the unforeseeable directions in our product-oriented society, where one is no longer the sum of their actions, but the sum of their own objects.

OOI is a catalog constructed as a result of a personal fascination with understanding the nature of our consumption. It investigates the odd connections between objects and history and their cultural relevance in our individual and collective identities.

Everyday objects are presented through a new lens, for one to show another side of these familiar items, and for another to question how much these objects can transform or manipulate one's identity. Objects are becoming a part of our bodies, everything we own is an extension of the body and mind. The tools that we are shaping and that are now starting to shape us are at the edges of our comprehension. We have to understand how tools are shaping us, and how to cope with that shaping in the time of hyper-change.

In today's world, the consumer spree carries on regardless, and a few of us are aware that we are still willing servants to a completely artificial injunction to consume and to define ourselves by what we consume.

• We often think that we create objects. But objects also create us.
• Can a chair carry memory?
• What makes an object belong to a culture?
• When does a product become a relic?

Ideas that challenge what we consider normal

I speak about material innovation, entrepreneurship, circular systems, design, waste, and the changing relationship between people and technology.

My talks combine research, industrial experience, design thinking, and the reality of building a materials company from the ground up.

Rather than presenting sustainability as a set of incremental improvements, I am interested in the larger questions behind our industrial systems.

• What do we consider a resource?
• Why do we accept certain forms of waste as inevitable?
• What happens when biology becomes part of industrial manufacturing?
• Can companies create commercial value while changing the systems in which they operate?
• What does it mean to design when the consequences of design extend far beyond the object itself?

I speak at conferences, universities, industry events, cultural institutions, and company programmes internationally.

Design is a way of questioning systems

My background is in architecture, design, and interdisciplinary research.

Before Human Material Loop, my independent practice explored how materials, objects, identity, and systems influence one another. My work has included projects with public institutions, cultural organisations, and industry.

I also teach at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, where I work with students on materials, design research, and the systems behind the objects we create.

I do not see design simply as the process of making objects.

• Design can question assumptions.
• It can expose systems that have become invisible.
• It can give value to things that have been overlooked.

We are part of the system

One idea connects much of my work.

Humans are not above the ecosystem. We are part of it.

The industrial systems of the last century were largely built around separating people from the consequences of production. Materials arrive as products and disappear as waste, while the processes connecting those moments remain mostly invisible.

I am interested in making those connections visible again. Building a circular economy requires more than replacing one material with another. It requires new relationships between waste streams, science, manufacturing, design, infrastructure, business, and culture.

That is why I am interested in building ecosystems rather than isolated products.

The question is not only what we make.

It is what kind of system does what we make create?

Zsofia Kollar is a Netherlands-based entrepreneur, designer, researcher, writer, and speaker working at the intersection of material science, design, and business.

Her work investigates how overlooked resources can become the basis for new industrial systems and material categories.

Before founding Human Material Loop, she published Object Oriented Identity, examining the relationship between consumer culture, objects, behaviour, and identity.

Alongside building Human Material Loop, I teach at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, and speak internationally about material innovation, circular systems, entrepreneurship, design, and the future of materials.

I advise design companies, brands, and organisations on material innovation, circular business models, product development, and emerging material technologies. Drawing on experience across design, science, and entrepreneurship, I support teams in identifying new opportunities, translating material innovation into commercial applications, and connecting creative ambition with industrial reality.

I also curate and contribute to exhibitions, programmes, and research projects that bring together materials, technology, design, industry, and culture.

If you wish to submit your work for consideration on @objectidentity IG please fill out the form below. After submission, your work will be reviewed and evaluated for inclusion.