MADEC. Material Design Culture

Due to the increased complexity of materials and production processes, the responsibility of the development of a design is often left in the hands of technicians and production personnel. This lack of knowledge about materials thus effectively creates a barrier between the designer and the product. Bridging this gap represents a challenge to designers and especially to the design schools. Designers cannot know everything but they can open their minds and develop a more conscious understanding of this new field of design practice starting from a cultural point of view. This paper wants to present a re-search promoted by the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano and funded by FARB (University Funds for Basic Re-search), for the creation of a Research Centre named MADEC, with the ambition of recognizing peculiarities of Italian Mate-rial Design Culture, and tracking their evolution in the contemporary era of “tailor made materials” as technological para-digma. The paper is divided into three parts: the first part concerns reasons, motivations and the state of the art of the research; the second part describes in detail the research activities developed during the first year of the project; and the third part is dedicated to conclusions with some critical considerations and future actions.