ILLUM - Soft Tech for Regenerative Lighting
Aknur Zhussip
Zarina Belousova, M.Arch is an architect with 12+ years of experience merging classical training with an experimental, material-driven approach. A graduate of Die Angewandte Vienna, she worked with Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura, Olafur Eliasson Studio, and at IAAC Barcelona, where she explored mycelium-based design. Her work was exhibited at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale under the Sanaa professorship of Kazuyo Sejima. She co-founded nōur, a spatial initiative focused on emotional and therapeutic design. Rethinking systems, materials, and spatial narratives is at the core of her practice. Experimentation is not a method - it is her design DNA.
Aknur Zhussip, MSc, is an architect and designer with 8+ years of international experience across architecture, urbanism, and social impact. A graduate of TU Vienna, she focused on socially engaged design, with projects in social housing, cultural spaces, and experimental architecture. Her work has been exhibited at the 2017 Seoul Biennale and other academic showcases, where she also co-curated and participated in design-build initiatives. Aknur has worked across scales - from urban planning to furniture design - and gained hands-on experience in a healthcare architecture office, where her involvement in hospital projects sparked a lasting interest in healing design. She has led and contributed to projects across Europe, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, emphasizing community-driven processes. Rooted in a nomadic heritage, her practice integrates nature, psychology, and design to create spaces of care and emotional resonance.
Let’s illuminate differently.
ILLUM challenges the conventional understanding of light as a fixed, object-based fixture. Instead, it proposes light as a surface - soft, flexible, and responsive. By merging e-textile technology with biodegradable and bioengineered materials, ILLUM creates modular light panels that can be draped, stretched, or suspended across architecture. These panels respond to environmental cues such as sound, movement, or ambient light, transforming illumination into an interactive, spatial experience. Neither fixture nor object, ILLUM is sensory, adaptive, and poetic.
The project begins with critical material and precedent research, mapping innovations in smart textiles, responsive environments, and post-industrial lighting design. It identifies a clear gap: existing technologies often rely on extractive materials and ignore ecological or spatial potential. ILLUM responds by developing a new category of light textiles using silk, wool felt, mycelium leather, SeaCell, and bacterial cellulose - all modular, compostable, and low-energy.
Beyond materials, ILLUM is a spatial tool. It offers an adaptable system that can divide rooms, create ambient zones, or activate architectural surfaces. Prototypes will take the form of luminous partitions, ceiling elements, and tactile sculptures - applicable in galleries, meditation spaces, or public interiors.
At its core, ILLUM is a reflection on how light shapes us - emotionally, environmentally, and architecturally. It invites a degrowth mindset and soft-tech aesthetic rooted in care, circularity, and presence. Within the LINA platform, ILLUM will evolve through site-responsive installations, material workshops, and public dialogues, contributing to a shared vision for regenerative spatial futures.