Rate My Professor Katrijn sabbe

Katrijn Sabbe is a lecturer and researcher in Circular Design within the Architecture and Design faculty at Hogeschool West-Vlaanderen (TU), operating as Howest University of Applied Sciences. Serving as a docent in materialization and researcher focused on circular applications at the product level in the Bachelor of Industrial Product Design program, she specializes in eco-design, design for reuse, recycling, and disassembly. Based at the Industrial Design Center (IDC), her expertise spans product design, digital design and arts, and the circular economy, with emphasis on sustainable packaging, transport solutions, and advanced manufacturing techniques such as pellet-based additive manufacturing.

As project leader of CICO-Hub 2, Sabbe advances circular entrepreneurship by building on prior waste stream analyses from Southwest Flanders manufacturing industries, collaborating with local governments, companies, social employment firms, design students, and professionals to co-create products and business models that generate economic value from waste and create jobs. She acts as design coach and materialization expert for the R3PACK initiative, targeting non-household plastic packaging through rethink, reuse, and recycle strategies, including development of design infrastructure in Howest's Circular Solution Lab. This lab, recently opened, features Flanders' only machine for printing fine, detailed parts with pellets, enabling redesigns like pallet boxes for recycling parks to meet stricter European packaging regulations. Sabbe guided students to win the 2025 AM Design Challenge and presented on pellet AM technologies, machines, materials, applications, and challenges at the Shaping Matter Event on April 2, 2025. Her work demonstrates practical solutions for regional industries transitioning to circular practices.