Focusing on one material and its potential for innovative product applications gave students in DEA 3030: Materials for Design & Sustainability the opportunity to examine and also transform their selected material.  Students chose materials from Chris Lefteri’s text “Materials for Design,” then moved onto research into the extraction and production of the material, its advantages and disadvantages, as well as case studies illustrating some of the traditional methods of expression.

This research / design process resulted in a product innovation utilizing the inherent material properties to solve a problem, fit a need, or expand on an existing product or system.  Each set of posters documents this process, culminating in their ideas for a compelling use for a natural / mined / or oil-based material.

Material manipulations are also displayed, documenting their first interaction with a material category, where they were asked to explore the limits of a material as well as it’s unlimited possibilities…