Future materials glow at TU Delft

The event, organised by the TU Delft Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering was called Future Materials: How design shapes the materials of tomorrow. It looked at emerging materials, which are newer, smarter or more evolved materials for industrial design. This can include anything from smart-fabrics that can interact with the user to innovatively produced materials such as mushroom threads.

Dr. Jansen is in fact section chair of the Emerging Materials group at the university, and he spoke about his work with such materials during his inaugural lecture titled ‘Materials that Move’. Held in the Aula, seven different kinds of so-called magic flyers were circulated among some audience members, illustrating the innovative, interactive interface of emerging materials which he believes will become important in the next 10 to 15 years. Traditionally a designer creates the shape of the product, and the user adapts to this. Jansen told Delta that using emerging materials, “I want to turn it the other way around, and make a product in which the shape adapts to the user.”

He and his group also work with electroluminescence, developing an umbrella which lights up when in contact with rain, and while the practical uses of such an umbrella may seem obscure, he believes it is a “demonstration to show the possibilities of this technology, and it also triggers people to think about it.”

Future Materials also marked the final event in the European research project of the same name. The Light.Touch.Matters consortium is made up of 17 partners from across the EU including TU Delft. The project was started in February of 2013 and has facilitated designers in developing smart-materials combining luminescence and interactive touch, a number of which were on display at the symposium with the opportunity for attendees to chat with the designers, and interact with the products. Particularly popular were the ‘smart-nun chucks’ developed by IDE graduate Stephen Hooft, and the Plastic Bakery, repurposing Polyethylene bottle-caps to produce some particularly vibrant table lamps.