MADEC: Exploring new methodologies to transfer material knowledge into design disciplines

Due to the increased complexity of materials and production processes, the responsibility of the development of a design is often left in the hands of technicians and production personnel. This lack of knowledge about materials thus effectively creates a barrier between the designer and the product. Bridging this gap represents a challenge to designers and especially to the design schools. (Bak-Andersen 2013, p.69) Designers cannot know everything but they can open their minds and develop a more conscious understanding of this new field of design practice starting from a cultural point of view. MADEC is a research group based in the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano in 2014 with the initial support provided by FARB founding (Fondi di Ateneo per la Riceca di Base), which deals with the relation between design and materials in design history and actuality. The center carries out researches on the “Italian Culture of Materials Design”, intended as the capacity of the Italian design to “interpret” materials and technologies to generate products and environments innovation. The main goal of MADEC is to develop vocational students’ and apprentices’ design-related competencies, integrating design into materials’ research and development, to better support commercial and societal applications benefiting from a cultural and multidisciplinary knowledge. This paper will report in particular two significant experiences carried on during the first year of MADEC: the e-journal issue “Italian Material Design: learning from history” and the open lectures cycle “The Ideas and the Matter”. The general project has been basically divided in four main activities: creating a open source on-line platform and a research and co-design network; enhancing academic papers and publications both concerning design history studies and contemporary topics; organizing transdisciplinary symposiums, workshops and seminars; participating to European projects seeking for collaboration between researches, designers and material suppliers and manufacturers. To the conclusion the paper will try to figure out the points of force and weakness of the research project and to trace future guidelines to improve its research and educational methodology.