Materia.com

Materials science was, hands-down, my favorite series of classes in college. Had nothing to do with the materials professor (who told me the only reason females (generally less than 5 percent of the class) attended was to “husband hunt,” and he was NOT joking), or because I’m particularly attracted to suspending 5-ton blocks of concrete on stainless steel wire above a bunch of innocent civilians.

Nope. I loved that class because it opened up whole new ideas: Eutectics. Crystallization. The difference between crystalline and amorphous solids. Liquidus and solidus. I’d always loved big chunks of stuff, and this class gave me a peek into why. And I still pay as much (or more) attention to the materials used in a project as to the project, even now.

So…there’s an organization in the Netherlands dedicated to connecting designers and architects with amazing new materials, and they run a website called Materia. It’s a fascinating place even if you don’t spec architectural materials for a living. (And if you’re a glassist, use their very nice search engine (Material Explorer) to look for types/textures of glass (you’ll need to register first). Fun stuff will result.)

Share on Facebook