Designing with Smart Materials in the Internet of Things Age

From the Neolithic Age, many materials dominated human society for certain periods. When it comes to the Internet of things (IoT) Age, smart materials and interactive materials systems are paid much more attention in fields of intelligent products. Even many smart materials systems show great potentials in different fields like fashion, architecture, healthcare and transportation, most of them are still in the experimental stage. Regarding smart materials system, also defined ICS_materials, they can serve as a part of intelligent products connected within the IoT Internet. Nevertheless, research about designing intelligent objects with smart materials in the IoT environment is still inadequate. For this reason, at the Design Department of the Politecnico di Milano, MADEC research centre is promoting researches, and many of them are in connection with researchers from all over the world, to put forward approaches and methods of smart materials' and smart materials systems' applications in the IoT. We present a literature review of the design research in the field of "Design for Materials" and "Design-driven Material Innovation" at the Design Department of the Politecnico di Milano, and the connection with the worldwide scientific research to make clear the reasoning forwarded, with the intent to support the designers in incorporating these materials into their design processes in the IoT environment.