Educating designers through Materials Club

Materials education is a crucial element in the field of design. Traditionally, learning about materials is theoretical and book based. However, the appearance of Fab labs in universities add tangible opportunities to enhance materials knowledge. Fab labs combined with classroom didactics create an experimental dimension transforming the original material didactics into participatory activities. This paper aims to analyze how existing Fab lab systems can be reframed to maximize benefits in the material education in the design domain. As a result, we propose the concept of Materials Club. The club is a system made to support design students connecting different resources and facilities to experiment with materials during the development process of their projects. This scenario also promotes methods, which could valorize the existing resources in universities and integrate them into a virtuous system improving current design and material education. We believe that the Materials club can become an essential tool making contribution in materials education.