Materia took a special presentation to the Dutch trade show, Materials 2014, last week. We spent time in selecting 100 materials for a technically minded audience of materials’ professionals. The theme was Material Crossovers, which included materials that have demonstrable innovations and that are inspiring and useful to both creative designers and technical professionals.

That meant that we brought along some 2,5D printed materials, such as the range by Elke Slasi, insulation made completely of bio-based material, and the polymer Sensitile, which has some great interactive optic properties.

As a special surprise, we also introduced our new interactive concept, ‘Discover’, to the Dutch audience. Visitors were able to use a micro-camera to zoom in on materials, which led to quite a few surprises. That meant that everyone could interactively explore materials like the Organoids biobased composite, iridescent films, translucent wood and textured metals. This was the first time that ‘Discover’ was made available to the Dutch audience.

Materia’s exhibition at Materials 2014 displayed a selection of over 100 materials from the collection. The exhibition’s goal was to create strong links between the creative and the technical industry. We are honoured that many of the show’s visitors responded so enthusiastically to the materials on display. The audience was surprisingly wide ranging, from designers and manufacturers to industry specialists and an interested general public.

Examples of the materials on show included bio-polymers, iridescent films, light-weight composites, anti-bacterial coatings, flexible wood, translucent wood, packaging material made of fungi, and self-healing materials.

Materials 2014 was held on April 16th and 17th 2014 in Veldhoven, in the Eindhoven region, which is frequently referred to as the Dutch design capital.