Meanings of Materials

This book is about meanings we attribute to materials of the objects around us. Materials convey meanings: they look traditional, they express luxury, they are associated with factories, or they conjure up one’s childhood. How do materials obtain these meanings? How do they interact with other elements of product design in expressing certain meanings? How can designers systematically incorporate meaning considerations into their materials selection processes? This book presents the concept of meanings of materials and has made a start in making this concept more actionable in design thinking.Design EngineeringIndustrial Design Engineerin

Creating awareness on natural fibre composites in design

Design EngineeringIndustrial Design Engineerin

Materials Framing: A Case Study of Biodesign Companies’ Web Communications

Advances in biodesign offer opportunities for developing materials for everyday products from living organisms, such as fungi, algae, and bacteria. Gaining widespread acceptance of new materials from the general public can be a lengthy process, making biodesign a high-risk pursuit with potentially significant economic, ecological, and social impacts. In this article, we conceptualize the notion of materials framing—combining knowledge from materials science, product design, and innovation management to create a communications strategy that accelerates popular adoption of novel materials. Which of its qualities will help orient users’ understanding of the new material? What is the best way to present those qualities? An extensive analysis of nine biodesign companies’ text and visual web communications revealed three core materials framing categories: material origins, fabrication processes, and material outcomes. We argue that these three categories expand the audiences’ focus beyond mere outcomes to include an organism's design potential—a lens with which to gain a more comprehensive view of the possibilities the material from a living organism affords.Design AestheticsIndustrial Design EngineeringEmerging Material

Affordances as materials potential: What design can do for materials development

Given the growing interest in “upstream” collaborative projects between designers and materials scientists, it is crucial to scrutinize designers’ creative contribution to materials development beyond “coming up with” application ideas. Overcoming this outdated preconception requires a shift away from the dominant perspective of cognitive psychology that understands creativity as being in the designer’s mind, to an understanding of it as being distributed between the designer and the material world. Creativity as such requires designers’ active participation in “discovering” the novel potentials of materials rather than merely translating the “given” materials information to product applications. In this paper we propose the Materials Potential Framework to liberate materials from the stigma of a purely solutionist approach (e.g., materials selection and application potential), and open up the possibility to approach materials generatively, for all they have to offer (i.e., materials potential). To that aim, our paper explores existing notions in the discussions of materials potential, namely form, function, and experience as materials potential, and provides a conceptualization beyond the evident merits of product applications. The conceptualization of “affordances as material potentials” shifts the focus to designers’ skillful acts of making and fabricating as ways of unlocking novel affordances of conventional and emerging materials.Emerging Material

User-material-product interrelationships in attributing meanings

In selecting a material to create an intended product meaning, several factors, such as the material’s sensorial and technical properties, the product in which the material is embodied, and who the user is, may need to be taken into consideration. Each factor consists of a number of aspects (e.g., user covers aspects including gender, expertise, culture, etc.) with each playing a different role in attributing meaning to a particular material. The role that two product aspects (shape and function) and two user aspects (gender and culture) plays in attributing meaning to two materials, plastics and metal, is studied. The study demonstrates the contention that meanings of materials in a particular context are shaped by interactions of materials with aspects of products and users. On the other hand, the effect of a certain aspect (e.g., shape) may change depending on the meaning (e.g., feminine) aimed to be expressed. The results of the study, main effects and interactions are thoroughly discussed in this paper.Industrial Design Engineerin

Ape & Banana: A new user experience for collecting bio-based disposables at festivals

This paper reports a study on the implementation of a bio-plastic material (PLA) for disposables at the Lowlands Music Festival. The main aim of the study is to develop a system which motivates Lowlands festival visitors to litter their PLA disposables effectively. In the paper, littering behavior of festival visitors, their norms and values are explored; and several approaches are discussed for creating a motivation for effective littering at Lowlands. Two concepts are created and tested at the festival. One of them is selected and further developed.Design EngineeringIndustrial Design Engineerin

Material Considerations in Product Design: A Survey on Crucial Material Aspects Used by Product Designers

The competitive market rising from the increase in product consumption makes product designers consider more about materials than before. Materials, indeed, have been extensively studied in science and engineering for years. Existing materials selection sources can serve as useful function in giving up to date information on technical (physical, quantifiable) characteristics of materials. However, designers also use some intangible aspects with the aim of expressing their intentions; attributing some meanings to their products through their appropriate choices of material. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate materials selection process in product design in order to find out what kinds of aspects of materials are significant for product designers in their selections. This paper includes an experiment conducted with 20 professional designers. The findings from the experiment were used for establishing a required data table representing the material considerations of designers in materials selection. The crucial role of intangible characteristics of materials in their selections is emphasized.Design EngineeringIndustrial Design Engineerin

Healing with Fungi: Unique Aesthetic Expressions for Mycelium-Based Materials Through Patch and Mend

Mechatronic DesignEmerging Material

The making of performativity in designing [with] smart material composites

As the material becomes active in disclosing the fullness of its capabilities, the boundaries between human and nonhuman performances are destabilized in productive practices that take their departure from materials. This paper illuminates the embodied crafting of action possibilities in material-driven design (MDD) practices with electroluminescent materials. The paper describes and discusses aspects of the making process of electroluminescent materials in which matter, structure, form, and computation are manipulated to deliberately disrupt the affordance of the material, with the goal to explore unanticipated action possibilities and materialize the performative qualities of the sample. In light of this account, the paper concludes by urging the HCI community to performatively rupture the material, so to be able to act upon it as if it was always unfinished or underdeveloped. This, it is shown, can help open up the design space of smart material composites and reveal their latent affordances.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Emerging MaterialsHuman Information Communication Desig

Prototyping materials experience: Towards a shared understanding of underdeveloped smart material composites

Over the past years, product designers have been involved in collaborative developments of smart material composites early on in the development process, to showcase creative applications of them. In these projects, the way the material is presented to the development team and the extent to which its properties are defined affect how designers understand the potentials and boundaries of the material and envision product applications. In the context of a European project, Light.Touch.Matters, we studied the attempt of designers to understand and prototype underdeveloped composites of thin-film organic light emitting diodes and piezoelectric polymer. Arguing for a collaborative exploration of the unique experiences that such underdeveloped composites unfold, we elaborate on a challenge designers face in understanding and prototyping the experiential qualities, specifically, the dynamic and performative qualities. The paper presents our design approach and complementary tools to overcome this challenge. It further discusses the applicability and limitations of the proposed design supports in the context of collaborative materials development and outlines future research directions.Emerging MaterialsDesign Aesthetic