Sustainable Multipurpose Materials for Design

specialist book "Materials Experience" – 2013

Car bodies made by spider silk proteins, furniture made from fish scales, lightweight panels made of bamboo rings or light reflecting concrete: These are just some of the most striking examples of a…

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Animal Coffin - organic waste

Inspired by Nature – design on base of organic waste

GRID 4 – May 2013

Whether mussels, coffee granules, soya beans, flour or vinegar – designers are increasing looking to organic ingredients usually found in the kitchen in their search for new materials. And in doing…

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EcoSystem Timber Board

New Timber Materials

GRID 3 – March 2013

Although Germany is one of the most densely wooded areas in Europe it is reckoned that in the future there will be a bottleneck with regard to the procurement of timber. Manufacturers are responding…

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Chair Farm - growing furniture

Grown Furniture

md Magazine 2-2013

It looks as if our resource-wasting product culture is out of date. At present, designers are creating a new logic of manufacturing. They take their cue from the principle of plant growth, making…

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Squid London - colorchanging Wassertextilien

Changing colors for designers

GRID 2 – January 2013

Colors appeal, are calming, attract us or warn of danger. In intelligent surfaces they can even communicate with users. They respond to ambient influences, become transparent or change their shade…

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Energy Materials for Designers

GRID 1 – November 2012

Industrialized nations face enormous challenges as a result of the change in energy policy. At the same time there are a host of opportunities, especially for designers, who can start using new…

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Paulsberg lightweight design

Solid Lightweights

form 241 – November 2011

Aramid, glass and carbon fibers have long been used as reinforcement materials for plastics in lightweight vehicle design. Architects have recently discovered that they are suitable for realizing…

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Festo Bionikroboter Festo Biomimetics

Biomimetic Material

form 239 – July 2011

Bionics translates natural phenomena into innovative technologies and products. This branch of research became popular thanks to the lotus effect and other developments of biomimetic materials.

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Wood products with innovative qualities

form 238 – May 2011

Lately wood can do more than just heat the stove. It removes pollutants from the air, remains resistant to the most varied of weather and moisture, is also flame retardant and even has a metal look…

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Material Revolution in bath culture

BATH & CULTURE - APRIL 2011

Air-purifying mosses, foamed material made from mushrooms, lights made from algae fibre or water-resistant mosaic panelling made from coconut shells: Because of the shortage of resources, work is…

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Materials from organic waste

form 237 – March 2011

Cow stomachs, algae, sea-grass balls or camel hair: organic waste is very popular with material developers at the moment. Not only industrial manufacturers but also designers are amongst the…

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Plastics between multi-functionality and lightweight construction

form 236 – January 2011

The threat of supply bottlenecks for rare metals, oil and natural gas are at present one of the topics dominating the materials industry. And the exhibitors at K 2010 in Düsseldorf also primarily…

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High-tech Glass for Design and Architecture

form 234 – September 2010

The Egyptians were using glass to make vessels and jewelry as early as 1500 BC. Nowadays glass has far more diverse applications, and moreover this traditional material is making waves through…

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Textile Fibers Batyline

Textile high-tech fibres in new dimension

form 233 – July 2010

Light, flexible, high-tensile and recyclable is probably how best to summarize the qualities of textile materials, which made them suitable for use in technological applications. It seems that their…

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Luminoso translucent wood

Translucent Materials

form 232 – May 2010

Ever since Áron Losonczi made concrete translucent, our conventional idea of firm materials seems to have been turned upside down. Now, we are even able to make wood translucent, stone walls can…

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Bioplastics Biowert - Graskunststoffe

Bioplastics – A new Market with Biopolymers

form 231 – March 2010

Foams made of castor oil, biodegradable tableware of potato starch, plastics reinforced with carrot fiber. All of them use bio materials – a group of materials that has recently grown quite…

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Micronal - Phase-Change Material

Phase-change Materials

form 230 – January 2010

We are familiar with them as hand and pocket warmers, namely phase-change materials, which are also referred to as latent heat accumulators. They are capable of emitting heat to their environment…

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Metal foam structures

form 229 – November 2009

For several years metal foams have provided designers and architects with inspiration for new applications in the lighting and interior segments. Hollomet has been using a new plant technology that…

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Multifunctional Textiles

form 228 – September 2009

At the Techtextil 2009 in Frankfurt, the European textile industry set out once again to reinvent itself by means of multifunctional textiles. Today's products are electrically conductive,…

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InMold Technologies

form 227 – July 2009

In the mid-1980s the production of plastic components with special decor was revolutionized through the possibility of injection molding on foils. Today, InMold techniques are also applied to…

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Natureplast Sustainable

Sustainable Materials and their Potential

form 225 – March 2009

Resources like oil are becoming increasingly scarce and prices have risen, the demand for alternative materials is growing. Closed-loop sustainable materials find their way into the market.

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B.Lab smart Interaktionspanel

The Future of Smart Materials

form special issue – spring 2009

The world of products seems to have lost its material properties. Many different areas of our lives have long since become virtual, stripped of materials. But recently their is a new group of smart…

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New Nano Papers

form 224 – January 2009

Nanotechnology can lend conventional materials extraordinary properties – the possibilities appear to be limitless. Applications for paper can also be surprisingly expanded in this way. An overview…

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Smart Materials – High Tech meets Low Tech

form special issue – Autumn 2008

In designing products today one should not limit oneself to the newest high tech and smart materials. Many designers today avail themselves of simple ideas and conventional materials, extract these…

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Trends of the adhesives Industry

form 221 – July 2008

Adhesives can do a lot more today than just stick two things together. They can be flame-resistant, electrically conductive – or even completely dispensable. At the moment textiles which adhere to…

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As pliable as Granite

form 220 – May 2008

Stone materials and concrete are among the oldest materials in the world when it comes to producing objects and buildings. Ultra-high-strength concrete, carbon fiber brick, nanotitanium dioxide: the…

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Fabbing for Design and Architecture

form 219 – March 2008

Fabbers are nothing more than a further development of rapid prototyping, a generative technology that has been used to manufacture prototypes and simple tools since the 1990s. The article describes…

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Sharp Light – potential of laser cutting

form 218 – January 2008

They can cut, weld, or harden - lasers are multifunctional tools that designers are increasingly using. There are now enough service providers who, for example, also offer laser cutting for small…

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The Power of Material

form special issue – Winter 2007

The question of which material is best suited to which product has become much more important to designers. Today, there are so many more new material developments available that they often comprise…

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Plastics go mobile

form 215 – July 2007

Plastics are light and flexible – which is why they’re in great demand when mobility is the order of the day. In the aerospace and auto industries, their use is rapidly on the rise. An ever greater…

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CNT Baytubes Nanopartikel

Useful Particles – Functional surfaces based on nanoparticles

form 214 – May 2007

Silver, titanium, diamonds – materials from which, above all, jewelry used to be made. Today, they play an ever greater role in the high-tech industry and also for designers. Their nano-structures…

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