The expressive-sensorial dimension of materials for industrial design

The aim of the research concerns the materials for design and their expressive-sensorial dimension. The materials’ expressivness and sensoriality, that constitute the objects sourraunding us, are designeble and controlable through the knowlwdge and management of their engineering and technological properties. The objective is to create an association between the materials’ phenomenological aspects and their physical-chemical and technological properties. These are two important components today recognized as fundamental for the industrial design process. From an historical recognition on the relationship between the design and the matter’s languages, we consider the contemporary situation, where the materials’ sensoriality si rediscovered and renewed, both in a comunicative and ergonomic-functional points of view. The practical opportunity of this theoretical research is the realization of a tool finalized to guide and aid the interpretation of the materilas’ phenomenological, perceptive and sensorial aspects. That has been developed is the expressive-sensorial atlas of materials for industrial design as a tool where the design culture and the engineering culture are met and conversed for the common purpose of conscience about the complex matter world.