Only six more weeks and Material Xperience 2018 will take place in Rotterdam Ahoy, the Netherlands! This year, we show you materials and special items from the world of architecture, interior, fashion & workwear, products, mobility, and graphic & packaging. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll give you a preview of what you can expect in each sector. This week: meet the future of architecture!

Architecture ambassador
This year’s architecture ambassador is Ulrich Knaack, Professor Design of Construction at Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), and professor Façade Technology at TU Darmstadt (Germany).

Large exhibition pieces
Material Xperience is for 140 exhibitors the annual platform to present their materials at the trade fair floor. Aside from the presentations by exhibitors and the independent material exhibition, several large exhibition pieces – often never shown to the public before – will be exhibited during the trade fair, showing the visitor a glimpse of the future. What can you expect?

3D Printed Reinforced Beam
The 3D Printed Reinforced Beam is part of the on-going research of Digital Building Technologies into 3D printed, structural building components at ETH Zurich. Two-sided cantilevering beams, up to 4.5 metres long, are fabricated out of sandstone. Components are 3D printed on a large-scale binder-jetting machine. Through several design iterations joints that interlock the components have been developed, making the beam one structural element.

3D printed ceramic vault shading system
Hexashade proposes a 3D printed ceramic vault shading system focusing on the design and production of fully customised architectural ceramic components. Entirely conceived in digital environment, based on the discretisation of vault structures on hexagonal blocks, this system intends to control solar incidence by its adaptive inner structure. Using a computational model and weather data of the place, every block is adapted by its relative position in the set, making it more or less permeable depending on the space/time ratio that needs to be shaded.

3D printed concrete construction elements
The construction element was additively manufactured (AM) layer by layer using a selective binding technique, the so called selective cement activation method. The solid was built by spreading layers of dry particles (a mix of cement and aggregate), which were locally bonded by an aqueous binder. In this case, expanded glass was used as aggregate. This object was produced to demonstrate the high geometric freedom in design and high resolution which can be achieved by this AM method.

Speaker programme Architecture
Wednesday morning 14 March, the speaker programme “The Future of Architecture” takes place in the Material Xperience theatre. Speakers are Ulrich Knaack (Professor Design of Construction at Delft University of Technology), Lisa Rammig (EOC London), Kasper Guldager Jensen (3XN), and Ana Maria Anton (ETH Zurich), amongst others. For the full programme, click here.

Materials from our collection
During this three-day event, Materia will show the newest materials from its independent collection, which were scouted during the past year. A small selection of materials:

I-MESH (PLA1051) is a composite material that filters, balances and diffuses light. The panels are custom made from yarn of, amongst others, carbon fiber, fibre glass, Zylon, Technora, and basalt. It is sustainable, recyclable, noise-absorbing, insulating, non-combustible, and it guarantees energy saving.

Lumiscopic (PLA1102) is a dichroic foil that can be applied to materials such as glass, acrylic or plastic. The colour of the material depends on the viewing angle, varying from warm to cool colours.

The ZEP solar cell roof tile (CER214) is a ceramic, traditional looking roof tile in which a solar collector has been integrated. From a distance, you can hardly see the solar cells, giving the roof a ‘normal’ look, while still generating green energy.

Want to see more? Click here for the newest materials in our collection!

Visit us
Curious? Material Xperience 2018 takes place from Tuesday 13 March until Thursday 15 March, in Rotterdam Ahoy. For more information and a free ticket, click here!