The material experiences as DIY-Materials: Self production of wool filled starch based composite (NeWool)

Abstract

One of the emerging practices driven by design that are flourishing in developed countries is related with DIY approach. In fact, it seems to be the best method to foster a sense of personal satisfaction and an emotional bond with the artefact.

The opportunity that the developing countries have now is to think in advance to use the DIY approach as an integral part of the design process both in its theory, practice and teaching. Today, the DIY approach is reinvigorated thanks to the new technologies available for digital fabrication and their massive diffusion. It seems that many unexplored paths are opening to the design practices and the designer’s role is transforming and evolving.

However, today the DIY approach can not be limited just by talking about digital fabrication technologies, but also considers those contexts where the designer can design him/herself the tools of his/her job, as did and do often the craftsman.

The materials are some of these tools in the designer’s hands to express his/her vision of the project. In this sense, we can talk not only about design of product, but also the realization of the material itself; the design of material. There are now many examples of self-produced materials by designers (Bianchini et al. in press), which focus in creating the material and then in designing its identity and its expressive-sensorial dimension trying to mediate between the engineering properties and perceived qualities.

With the self-production of materials is possible for the designer to design new materials experience that can drive the development of the artefact itself according to a method that it was called Material Driven Design. The self-production of materials allows reasoning about the theme of imperfection as emerging materials experience that fosters innovation through the acceptance and development of new aesthetics based precisely on the fault and defects.

The theoretical concepts discussed above were used to develop the case study explaining in this paper that describes an experience of self-production of material by the method 'cook materials'. We developed the case study using the method called ‘Cook.to.Design’ and the result obtained is a bio-composite based on potatoes starch and wool waste, from which four different materials came out and create a collection called ‘NeWool’. So, the case study is focused on material development, which is based on a strong chemical and sensorial research. The whole project lays its foundations on different social and economical considerations, which deals with design self-production, wool waste disposal problem and the possible optimization of wool production chain in Italy. The self-production of the material was carried out following 4 phases: Cooking [1] is the culinary experimentation for the production of materials, in the belief that it is often by chance that the most interesting findings arise; Test & List [2] investigates the physical and chemical laws that govern the transformations of substances and determines the technical properties of the obtained samples; Design.for.Interaction [3] defines the tools (C2D tool) and the protocol of a workshop, in which you provide sample data and the participants are left free to construct scenarios of application of the same; Finally Vision [4] translates into a formal study the possible applications of the material.

We are convinced that: “Perhaps the most interesting creative opportunity for design today is to redesign the very nature of design itself” (Brown, 2013).