January kicks off with Material Xperience 2010, one of the most important materials events in the Netherlands. I will be lecturing on Thursday January 27th about the future of materials. Curious? Get your free entry tickets here.

To get you started, please see my top 3 selection (below) of upcoming materials events. Enjoy and get yourself inspired!

27-29 January 2010 (Rotterdam)
Material Xperience 2010
Material Xperience is the event with material innovations for architects, interior architects and other creative professionals.
Link: www.materialexperience.nl

13-15 April (Paris)
JEC Composites Show 2010
The biggest composites exhibition in Europe!
Link: www.jeccomposites.com

19-23 April (Hannover)
Material Trends 2010
The material TRENDS exhibition 2010 is a special show presenting innovative materials, products and processes (including iF Design’s award winners) during the Hanover Fair.
Link: www.hannovermesse.de/materialtrends_e

Aging. Objects becoming more beautiful over time; Jasper Morrison about Super Normal and Naoto Fukasawa about “Shutaku”. Eternally Yours and giving products a longer lifetime; Destroying Saving letterforms with patina; Universal Design and age as economic factor; Look inside Material Short Stories; New materials competitions and “Repairing is the new recycling!”

Download the Get Inspired #03 – AGING newsletter now!

Material Matters is hosting three materials lectures during this year’s Dutch Design Week. Together with Els Zijlstra (Materia) and Karin van Beurden (Saxion University), Aart will be lecturing about visions of the future of materials in design.

Saturday October 24, the lectures are English spoken, topics are “Biomimicy” and “Materials Utopia” . To reserve your seat, please send an e-mail to info@materialmatters.nl

Material Matters is an Eindhoven based materials platform for designers, architects, product developers. In collaboration with Materia, Material Matters presents a collection of 350 inspiring materials during the Dutch Design Week 2009.

You can download the invitation (pdf) here, or directly see the Dutch Design Week program.

Impressions from team 529 this year’s MOPO Staffellauf

What are five exhausted people doing at a materials website? Well, at this year’s MOPO staffellauf fanatics from Laurich & Kollegen, PARK, and Material Stories joined their forces to do a 5 x 5000 meter relay run for the charity organization Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli.

Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli is a charity organisation located in St. Pauli campaigning for clean drinking water worldwide. “Materials Aart” strongly supports their motto “Water is Life!” - claiming for more awareness for the elementary role of water in the daily lives of people from all over the world where drinking water is not to be taken for granted.

Earlier, Material Stories supported Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli by raising money during the Material & Identity exhibition. With this sportive contribution and blog post Aart hopes to create more awareness and online donations for this charity organization.

P.s. Curious about our score? Check our score here: MOPO Staffellauf results 2009 (pdf)

Dear readers,

Now online, the second Get Inspired newsletter issue on POWER. Full of websites, books, resources, … all about materials in design! Download your free copy here:

Download: Get Inspired #02 – POWER

Enjoy reading, and enjoy your summer!

- Aart

Get Inspired #2 – POWER: James Dyson about Power (Full Story)

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Dear James, what are your first three associations with the word “Power”?

“Willpower: It was a combination of sheer perseverance and the frustration from an old vacuum cleaner that quickly lost suction which drove me to develop 5,127 prototypes before I had a vacuum cleaner that did not need a bag and did not lose suction. There was lots of swearing, bangs and crashes in between but it was definitely worth it.

Power(ful) performance: Dyson vacuum cleaners have patented Root Cyclone ™ technology, which spins dirt from the airflow, so it doesn’t lose suction.

Wind power: I believe that there needs to be even more of an emphasis on developing a sustainable future for everybody starting right now.  ‘Green’ energy will only be possible through engineering, and that’s exciting because science, design and engineering are the only subjects that enable you to change the future of the planet in such a meaningful and hands-on way.”

What does “Power” mean in the context of Dyson’s products?

“Space is at a premium in people’s homes but so is vacuum cleaning power.  So even though Dyson has been miniaturizing its technology, we are not compromising on the power and performance of our machines. Most recently, this has been made possible with the development of the next generation of DDM (Dyson digital motor) which is three times smaller than the first Dyson digital motor. It’s fast, light and brushless – giving it improved performance and a longer life. The impeller spins over three times faster than a conventional motor, and ten times faster than the engine of a Boeing 747 aircraft.

But we don’t want to improve the power of our technology at the expense of being energy efficient.  So at Dyson we have achieved both. Dyson digital motor V2 is 84% energy efficient – and twice as efficient as the motor in the DC16.

This new motor has seen its first application in our small, ultra-powerful new handheld vacuum cleaners, DC30 and DC31: compact and lightweight machines with constant, powerful suction.”

Thank you James. One more question: “How does Power, or performance, influence the selection of materials?”

“Before Dyson machines are ready, they go through destructive, endurance, performance and reliability testing 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Thousands of prototypes are smashed to pieces; some are thrown downstairs as part of endurance testing. Others are the victims of an engineer’s zeal for perfection.  Dyson engineers spend 30,000 hours a month testing machines to make sure they are happy with their performance and reliability.

The materials are carefully chosen to withstand this level of abuse. Polycarbonate is used in the construction of Dyson transparent bins and catches. It is known for its strength and impact resistance. And Polypropylene is used in Dyson tools, wheels, bumpers and cyclone assemblies. It is tough, but has an excellent level of fatigue resistance.

Dyson also aims to reduce the amount of materials used in its vacuum cleaners without compromising on strength. As such we build the walls as thinly as possible initially and build up (rather then the other way round) and test its strength throughout.  This process reduces the amount of resources needed to build our vacuum cleaners and less energy is used in the molding process.”

James Dyson is an English Industrial designer, inventor, and for most people “the man who invented the bagless vacuum cleaner”.

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About Get Inspired
Get Inspired is a quarterly materials newsletter published by Material Stories.
link: www.materialstories.com/newsletter

About Dyson
Dyson is a company driven by design, innovation and technology. Dyson invests heavily in research and development where a large percentage of Dyson’s total employees are scientists and engineers developing new technologies that make everyday products work better.
link: www.dyson.com

About the James Dyson Award

The James Dyson Award is an international design award that celebrates, encourages and inspires the next generation of design engineers. It’s run by the James Dyson Foundation, James Dyson’s charitable trust, as part of its mission to inspire young people about design engineering.
link: www.jamesdysonaward.org

The DOEN | Materiaalprijs 2009 (DOEN | Materials Prize), jointly organised by the Materiaalfonds and Stichting DOEN, seeks to promote sustainable design and the innovative use of materials in the visual art and design disciplines. The prize is open to all designers, fine artists, fashion designers and architects residing in the Netherlands.

Read on for more information and entry form.

The objective of sustainability is to improve the quality of life of the present generation without compromising the prospects of future generations. This applies not just to industry and everyday life but to the world of art and design. The fine and applied arts do not exist in isolation. They affect and impact the world at every level.

The DOEN | Materiaalprijs 2009 challenges fine artists and designers to come up with sustainable design projects that combine innovative materials with stylishness, beauty and functionality.

High quality and cutting-edge materials, recycling and upcycling, sustainable design, ecodesign, cradle to cradle and biomimicry can all help to create a better environment. The DOEN | Materiaalprijs is not restricted to a single discipline; it welcomes and encourages all design solutions that explore new, sustainable materials and techniques that reflect today’s world, and which are inspirational and viable.

Two prizes will be awarded:
A prize of € 15,000 for an (almost) finished product and an incentive prize of € 5,000 for an idea that has not yet been put into production. The fifteen best submissions will be presented during Dutch Design Week 2009 from 17 to 25 October 2009 in Eindhoven. The jury will announce the winners during Dutch Design Week.

The closing date for entries is 7 September 2009.

The competition rules and criteria are given on the entry form.
- you can download the entry form here

For more information email info@doen-materiaalprijs.nl or call +31 20 6255112

Dear materials fans, enjoy Material Stories first quarterly newsletter!

Get Inspired #01 – GROWTH is for download here (pdf)

You can subscribe here to receive future newsletters by e-mail.

This one goes to the young professionals among us. The German Design Council is inviting fresh graduates to present their works at this year’s Material Vision.

Since this is a call for German speaking countries – please don’t mind me forwarding this in “German only”.

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Vom 16. bis zum 18. Juni 2009 findet, parallel zur Messe Techtextil, die Messe Material Vision 09 der Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH statt. Der Rat für Formgebung ist Kooperationspartner der Material Vision.

In diesem Jahr möchten wir vier Hochschulabsolventen die Chance bieten, sich und ihre Arbeiten einem breiteren Publikum vorzustellen. Dabei besteht die Möglichkeit zu einer kurzen digitalen Präsentation im Rahmen des Vortragsforums. Gleichzeitig soll das Projekt auf einem Poster in Wort und Bild im Ausstellungsareal der Fachmesse vorgestellt werden. Der Fokus liegt auf aktuellen Arbeiten junger Absolventen, die sich mit dem Thema Materialien in Design und/oder Architektur auseinandergesetzt haben.

Weitere Informationen sowie die vollständigen ausschreibungsunterlagen stehen zum Download unter tinyurl.com/materialvision09 (pdf) zur Verfügung.

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Deadline for applications: 30 April 2009

Good luck, and if your project gets selected – let me know!

The Design Plus competition invites all manufacturers of all sectors, as well as designers and architects, to submit materials applications or products that have been made using innovative materials or processing techniques.

The competition on the occasion of Material Vision is organised by Messe Frankfurt in cooperation with the German Design Council (Rat für Formgebung).

See www.designplus-materialvision.de for more information and applications.

- Download the entryform (pdf) here
- Application deadline: 31 March 2009