materiO’

Truly, the trainers industry is hungry for “innovative matters” in the creation of its products. After the ultra bouncy expanded polyurethane, the artificial indestructible spider silk, the salvage of fishing nets to make new shoes, the tailor-made 3D printing for race soles, also seen a shoe made of ultra-breathable 3D textile, here is the algae made shoe… these seaside slippers are made from an EVA foam incorporating 40% of proliferating algaes. The harvesting of this raw material allows the clean-up of big chinese lakes invaded by this green alga. It now takes up to 6 the count of innovative materials in the database who find a job in the mass production field. Will the next pair of shoes be of pineapple “vegan leather” ? or made with bipolar micro-magnets to levitate above a floor of concrete-magnet ? We could suggest a lot of other tracks, so to be continued...

Three first little things to note during this year's Milan Design Week: 
• a very nice installation at the Cinema Arti of Studio Swine (we already spoke of their great video about hair marquettry).
• the presentation, at the Triennale di Milano, of glass objetcs made by MIT last year with their prototype machine for 3D printing of molten glass.
• and then the last creations of the designer Jorge Penadés, the specialist of et enfin les dernières réalisations du designer Jorge Penadés, The specialist of compressed and magnified leather wastes.

Keep in touch...

Some of you, dancing with impatience, contacted us to know when our next frühstück would be.. Well, as usual, it will be the last Thursday of the month, i.e. March 30. A "farandole" of material innovations (more than 40 samples unveiled!) presented during a short session (9 to 10 am, not a minute more!) exclusively to our members. The opportunity, if you are not yet a member of our service, to become one... Click here !!!
If you already have a subscription, please register by simple email.
Guten Tag, und am 30. March

Just to make your mouth water, few of the materials we will present here

Time to shine a spotlight on the exciting work being undertaken for the last few years by BiotA Lab, University College London’s multi-disciplinary research platform, set up to look at the interactions between the natural worlds, biology and human activity. In particular we draw attention to their latest experiments on a particular form of concrete whose chemical and structural make-up has been specifically designed to enhance the growth in situ of vegetal micro-organisms such as algae, mosses and lichens which:
· bio-colonise the facades of buildings
· produce oxygen
· absorb CO2
· clean buildings of pollution and even improve their insulating capacity.
This work is not only re-defining the concept of the building but, also, of our whole built environment. In other words, there’s more to come….

To discover more about BiotA Lab click here

Shown alongside other works at the latest Première Vision salon in Paris was Ying Gao’s beautiful project “Incertitudes”, already trailed here some time ago. Produced in leaves of PVDF and dressmaker pins, this interactive garment reacts to the human voice, the needles bristling and falling at the whim of sounds and moods, as if they were a scaled-up version of hairs on the skin. The movement of the needles is hypnotising but, as the saying goes, gather thistles, expect prickles!

Click here for the site of the designer, Ying Gao

Are 3D concrete printing techniques already mature? In any case that’s the impression given by a series of experiments carried out by Bekkering Adams Architects in Rotterdam and the Eindhoven University of Technology. The team did not simply want to use 3D printing as an alternative to other means of forming concrete but, instead, tried to push the specificities of this technology to explore its own vocabulary, its own forms and its own capacity. Playing on different parameters for cement extrusion – speed, height of drop, fluidity, nozzle shape - the firm obtained several prototypes with a clearly defined aesthetic and characteristics (and with a nod to twentieth century rustication, like the latest MIT experiments on 3D glass printing). 3D concrete printing is no longer aping what already exists but is breaking free and exploring new avenues. 

 Bekkering Adams web site

Two projects seen today at Maison&Objet Paris, using noticeable materials: the table and chairs from Patricia Urquiola, made using a dichroic laminated glass, and the MIYAVIE furniture designed by Koichiro Kimura, based on entangled polyethylene threads. Visible until January 24 in Paris Villepinte.

M&O
Glas Italia
Miyavie

The principle of Kombucha, the ancestral mongolian drink which consists in making some sweetened black tea ferment with some yeast, inspires once again university researchers in their research to find an alternative to the animal leather. Indeed, during the manufacturing of the sour drink, a gelatinous skin of mycelium develops on the surface of the macerating liquid. By filtering then by drying this jelly of fibers of cellulose, the researchers of Iowa State University can get flexible sheets, from beige to brown tones quite similar to real leather, despite a bigger sensibility to the humidity and the cold, and a good but quick biodegradability. Eventually the goal would be to replace the animal leather in the production of clothes, shoes, handbags and other classic applications. A vegan leather someway...

More info on Iowa State University's website here