From injection molding to liquid wood

Paid partnership with Material-Archiv

The world consists of materials. They surround us everywhere - we work, live and reside with them. And: we are responsible for them. The understanding of materials as well as the knowledge of manufacturing and processing techniques is diminishing. Scarce resources require new and re-thought materials and technologies. For today's object and industrial design, architecture and also the design of urban spaces, resource awareness and a sense of social responsibility are indispensable. Both arise and grow through education, knowledge transfer, sensibilization and participation. The Swiss network Material-Archiv is dedicated to this "material education". Its work contributes to social debates and creates awareness for environmental education - independently and with a low threshold.

The network currently consists of nine members: The Gewerbemuseum Winterthur, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts – Technology & Architecture, the Sitterwerk St. Gallen, the Zurich University of the Arts, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts – Design & Art, ETH Zurich, the Zurich University of Applied Sciences Winterthur, the Bern University of the Arts and the Swiss Sample Centre Zurich. The extensive and free content of the network can be accessed in two ways: The physical sample collections of the members and the recently redesigned and re-conceptualized knowledge portal materialarchiv.ch, in cooperation with the Zurich office Astrom/Zimmer & Tereszkiewicz.

Thanks to semantic data architecture, all contents are linked and can be found, filtered, and thus more easily understood. This "linking machine" contains 1,300 materials, 180 manufacturing and processing methods, 162 material groups, 920 application examples, of course the 9 sample collections of the Material-Archiv members as well as 160 events.

Since the relaunch, experts from architecture, design, art and crafts, as well as the general public, can not only rely on the factual depth of the wealth of knowledge, but also on inspiration, provocation and, in the best sense of the word, "fuzziness" of the platform. For example, when searching for a vegetable thermoplastic in the injection molding process, one comes across the strange-sounding liquid wood, which in turn leads to the bioplastics group. And also the application examples can be irritating in the best sense of the word. For example, by moving from a Herzog & de Meuron luminaire via the material silicone rubber to the material group of elastomers, which then leads one to the condom.

To enable this content meandering, the developers and the Material-Archiv network consciously relied on the digital linking of materials and their practical contexts, or the physical world. The graph-based data architecture records the "kinship of things" and is a further step in the attempt to organize knowledge and the world.

"For us as database developers, a central consideration was that we experience and perceive materials in the physical world, but separated from many contexts. This is where the great potential of the digital lies, to make these contexts immediately and simultaneously tangible," says Anthon Astrom.

Analog and digital are not opposites, but a continuum. This can be well experienced and used, for example, in the Sitterwerk St. Gallen. The order of the media available there is dynamic. Users individually compile the content on an interactive table with the help of the so-called workbench, each time anew. Material-Archiv and Astrom/Zimmer & Tereszkiewicz hope that materialarchiv.ch will enable people to activate their responsibility for their environment more directly and emphasize the connection between material knowledge and material care.

Click here for the Material-Archiv.

Image credits:

Image 01 Material-Archiv and Astrom/Zimmer & Tereszkiewicz
Image 02 Material-Archiv and Astrom/Zimmer & Tereszkiewicz
Images 03 Material-Archiv and Astrom/Zimmer & Tereszkiewicz
Images 04 Material-Archiv and Astrom/Zimmer & Tereszkiewicz
Images 05 Material-Archiv and Astrom/Zimmer & Tereszkiewicz