materiO’

Already several years that we speak to you about the company Rayform, for an innovation as sharp, masterful as poetic. This startup from EPFL literally sculpts light, either by reflexion on a metal plate or by diffusion through a transparent material. Rayform has developed a collection of unique, stylish rings that employ this technology. Invisible at first glance, the singularity of gold and diamond jewelry is revealed once they are exposed to light. The rings’ surface appears smooth, but it is actually structured extremely precisely so as to reflect light in a certain way and form words.
Messages are your choice, and rings patterns are here

If the Vantablack seems so black, it’s because the paint is composed of millions of carbon nanotubes erected perpendicular to the treated surface. The incident light loose itself in the carbon nanotube forest without being able to emerge and being reflected.Reserved until now for some technical applications pointed (astronomy, military sector). This extreme optical phenomenon leads to the suppression of any perception of relief on an object. “The world’s blackest black” start to democratize themselves with this first application in automotive sector. And BMW X6 is the world’s first vehicle with this ultra-black coloring, but  it’s seem initially curious to choose this paint with this model because he’s known and appreciated for its aggressive lines or outrageous… The look only perceived his silhouette, the aggressive shaped and threatening of the X6 ... Just amazing. At the Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW will display a one-off version X6 but… probably to touch only with the eyes because this treatment "velor" badly supports the abrasion and the shocks. The paint is, by all accounts, a transfixing thing to look at. A real "eye catcher"!

Our Korean partners are opening a new space dedicated to design and creation in the very center of Seoul! Though as a space for sharing, inspiration and work, it is possible to simply come and have a coffee, but also to work, to consult books and experts in all kinds of trends, but also and above all, to come and get inspiration on the space reserved for matériO' Seoul, a sort of carefully selected sample of what an entire matériO' showroom can offer you! A resolutely modern building, which pays homage to Parisian iron structures from the entrance, and in which matériO' is delighted to see some of its must-have materials, such as this glass facade with dichroic effects, which we can't stop watching change with the day & light passing... Big openning on 24 August!

We already talked about it 3 years ago for its opening but we do not resist to show you this magnificient Dutch building once again on the occasion of Hermes’s move-in. An impressive realisation of solid glass bricks for an Hooftstaat facade (a busy commercial road in Amsterdam). Designed by the Dutch architecture office MVRDV, this facade carefully reproduces the traditional aesthetic of a clay brick building but with glass brick on the first two floors. This glass then fades slowly away to let the opaque bricks take its place. Though this project was ambitious as glass bricks are difficult to make, hard to work and very demanding regarding joints, the result is breathbreaking. So very advanced processes (specific moulds, revolutionnary transparent UV bonding) for a realisation that plays with the traditional architectural codes of this beautiful city of Amsterdam.

More information about the Crystal Houses on the MVRDV website.

On May 30, Fredrik Tjaerandsen, a student at the famous fashion school CSM, thrilled the audience with his inflated collection during the year-end fashion show: We saw models in wrapped in bubbles clothes, walking voluptuously wrapped in oxygen, and stopping to let some pieces deflate elegantly and become draped clothes of different shapes, seeming to play hula-oop slightly around the sizes of the models, still imbued with their old gigantic dimensions. These balloon dresses, made (for the most part) of natural rubber, are designed according to an air pressure system that allows the wearer to control the volume or open a latch inside to release the air, and exit from the bubble.
Each dress was inflated by the designer before the show, and requires about two to three thousand liters of oxygen: While smaller bubbles take 10 minutes to fill, the largest bubble takes about 1 hour to form! If you are claustrophobic, don't panic, these rooms contain enough air to breathe 3 hours quietly immersed, it gives you time to experience the feeling that the designer tried to re-transcribe : this misty and uncertain memory that we have of our childhood, suddenly broken and connected to the world when our "naive" box explodes... So now, we leave you alone in your bubble to think about all this.

The annual production of milk in the world is highly fluctuating, periodically leading to significant overproduction. It is therefore interesting to find uses other than food for this milk, which quickly becomes unfit for consumption. One of the solutions adopted today is to transform milk into a bio-sourced polymer, itself then declined in the form of fibres, which can then be woven or compacted into milk felt. The Italian company nat-2 now offers several models of shoes whose upper is made of milk felt, for comfortable, breathable, anti-bacterial shoes or slippers, all in a palette of colors ranging from off-white to light brown...

For the producer, it's here

Today, a bit of geography! Does micronesia mean anything to you? A Pacific federal state, with a tropical climate, located in the east of the Philippines, composed of 607 heavenly islands! If we had to give only three colours to set the mood, take a turquoise blue that flirts outrageously with transparency, add an almost white sand, and a lush green, and here we are in Micronesia... No need to add the sunny blue of the sky, it is automatically induced in the light scale. And it is in the heart of this archipelago of beatitude that a company quietly makes papers from banana fibres, handmade, very versatile, printable and adjustable (size, thickness...). The company also offers wallets, made of very thick and slightly waxed banana paper, closely looking like leather... It is exactly in Kosrae, the smallest, least populated and least dense state in the country that this paper is made! An island where the tranquility is such that only one plane a week disrupts it and ensures a minimum of exchange with the rest of the world. And it is this plane that allows us to receive an envelope filled with stamps that look like paradise, full of banana paper that leaves us dreaming...