The speed with which new materials are developed and brought to market today has no precedents in human history. We have available a myriad new materials derived from such traditional ones as wood, ceramics and glass; and we have materials that perfect the performances of the materials of modernity, from steel to plastics. Then there are composite materials of various types and kinds, from the so-called “liquid wood”, a composite of plastics and sub-products of woodworking, to composite’s based on fi bres in a plastic matrix, on which much yacht production is based. Then there are the absolute innovations: materials with almost magical properties; unusual materials for common understanding and experience of what material has so far meant to us. These are the smart materials, which take us into a new era: the era of increasingly light, changing and dynamic material
