Tjeerd is concerned with radical changes in the value chains from raw material to finished product. He tries to make connections between food and material instead of food vs material. For instance, they created SashiFungi, which is their interpretation of a textile made of fungi. The textile is made from thin slices of Oyster mushrooms which grow back together in 4 days thanks to the internal growth force of the foot, creating beautiful patterns. Tjeerd also uses other waste materials: he uses the head of tulips, which strangely have no economic value, and turns them into pigment through a mechanical and biochemical process. In one of his recent projects, he developed a new material for ProRail to make their station equipment more sustainable. Instead of concrete, he created a mussel granulate mixture that is mixed with a biobased binder.

Next to being a Dutch urban designer, Tjeerd Veenhoven is an accomplished lecturer on design thinking, social entrepreneurship, and sustainability. He is also part of the Tactical Design and Fashion groups at the ArtEZ School of the Arts, where he is leading various research initiatives on lignin, cellulose and mycelium.