Materials for design. Innovation between research and didactics at the Politecnico di Torino | Materiais para design. Inovacao em pesquisa e didactica no Politecnico di Torino

In comparison with other material libraries, what are the innovative aspects of MATto? The added value of MATto is the capacity to choose and select the materials in relations to the project in which they are included. In other words to provide meta-project solutions by identifying new materials or semi-finished products suitable for every specific need or request of each project, based not only on the technical and economical performances, but taking into account also the sensory and environmental material properties. Consequently, by using these four research keys/point of views, technical, economical, environmental and perceptual properties, the most suitable materials selection provided by MATto, could be compared with the analysis of the traditional material provided by other well-known databases, and could become the key for future designers to improve the SMEs development, according to the current sustainability and innovation trends. After a background analysis relating to role of the designer today and the state of the art of the existing material libraries around the world, in this paper are deeply illustrated the adopted methodological approach in order to deal with the sensory and sustainability performances of materials and semi-finished in relation to the metaproject phase in order to outline innovative solutions for the SMEs.