Rethinking Materials: Insights from the IMD Symposium

Near Frankfurt, in a historic building that once housed a traditional porcelain factory, the IMD Materialdesign Designresearch Symposium took place. IMD, the Institute for Materialdesign and Advanced Material Studies, operates as part of HfG Offenbach. At first glance it looks like a small academic conference. In practice, it felt like entering a living research space, full of working hands, where cross-cultural encounters and interdisciplinary dialogue explore the future of materials from a design perspective.

I arrived with a clear intention: to listen, to observe, and to understand what is currently happening in the leading academic hubs for material-related design and research in Europe. In the conference, organized by Prof. Dr. Markus Holzbach, Prof. Dr. Tom Bieling, Dr. Ziyu Zhou and Valentin Brück, I found a small, close-knit, welcoming professional community of material designers who work together in a spirit of openness, curiosity, and a desire to expand horizons through cross-disciplinary collaboration. Each comes from a different background and place – Germany, Italy, Colombia and more – a living network of shared practice, knowledge and passion for material design research.

IMD: An academic institute inside a working porcelain factory

The Höchst Porcelain Manufactory was founded in 1746 and still produces traditional handmade porcelain from local clay. The scale is modest, but the level of craftsmanship is among the highest in Europe. The factory has been operating for centuries, yet in recent years it has been struggling economically. This is the result of shifting tastes, competitive markets, and high production costs that are difficult to align with the demands of contemporary consumers.

The presence of IMD inside the factory is no coincidence. Embedding an academic institute in this context is intended to preserve material knowledge, support local industry, and foster collaboration across generations and disciplines. Designers, researchers, and craftspeople work side by side, combining traditional knowledge with contemporary techniques, material research, and experimental tools for developing new materials.

The physical setting of the symposium, surrounded by shelves of molds, prototypes, and tools, highlighted the direct connection between material, knowledge, community, and tradition. This is not only a place where materials are designed. It is a place that shapes and maintains culture and know-how.

Collaboration between academia and traditional industry

The Institute for Materialdesign and Advanced Material Studies (IMD) is a strong example of a direct connection between an academic institution and a traditional manufacturing environment. Similar models are emerging both within and beyond Europe, as part of new approaches to material development.

These collaborations unfold at many interfaces: between design and the natural sciences, technology, sociology, and material culture. Designers work with biologists, chemists, mechanical and materials engineers, anthropologists, psychologists, medical professionals, and others. The shared understanding is that meaningful innovation in materials requires a systemic view and sensitivity to cultural and behavioral contexts.

This type of collaboration allows for the preservation of unique traditional knowledge, while opening up new possibilities for research and development through cross-disciplinary partnerships and grounded, practice-based work.

The symposium presented several initiatives in this spirit. Emma Sicher, for example, shared an interdisciplinary project with microbiology researchers from Humboldt University and Kasetsart University in Thailand. There she learned about local traditional fermentation techniques, which led her to discover that it is possible to grow SCOBY-like material systems from different sources without adding a starter culture. Combining traditional knowledge with design and scientific laboratories opened new research directions and questions that were previously out of reach.

In Germany, the Matters of Activity (MoA) cluster at Humboldt University collaborates with the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces on cross-disciplinary projects in design, biology, and soft-material chemistry. Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten presented research into the properties, technologies, and potential applications of pine bark from local forestry. Her work focuses on the relationships between structure, material, and movement and on the potential of bark as an alternative resource.

Sofia Soledad Duarte Poblete presented a compelling research project carried out at Politecnico di Milano within the Made Trans research group led by Prof. Valentina Rognoli. The project develops cross-disciplinary methodologies for working with local, culturally grounded, and sustainable materials, in collaboration with entrepreneurs, sustainability researchers, and materials scientists.

In all these cases, collaboration between designers and researchers from other fields is not simply a nice-to-have support tool. It is a precondition for developing original, context-aware solutions that are grounded in systemic thinking.

Rethinking Materials: Designers as drivers of innovation

Throughout the symposium, one idea came up again and again. The role of designers in material research and development is broad and diverse. It is not limited to aesthetics. Designers build bridges between fields and help develop new material languages.

Principles such as open-ended material exploration, listening to the material, hands-on practice, and iterative trial and error are now seen as core components of contemporary design research. They are also the practices that drive innovation through doing.

In many of the research projects presented, designers took on the role of facilitators. They mediated between different disciplinary languages and helped create shared visual, material, and conceptual frameworks. In several cases, design research contributed to scientific discoveries on the one hand, and on the other to the communication and dissemination of scientific knowledge, thanks to the unique capabilities designers bring to the process.

At the same time, an important insight emerged. For designers to integrate effectively into interdisciplinary research, they often need additional skills that are not always included in their formal education. These include systematic documentation, protocol writing, and quantitative measurement. Lacking these tools can slow down recognition of designers’ contributions, and sometimes even lead to unconscious dismissal by partners from other disciplines.

If designers are to not only participate but truly influence, there is a need to strengthen their ability to communicate design processes and thinking in ways that scientific and technological partners can understand, appreciate, and use as a springboard for joint development.

Working with scientists and engineers

To develop innovative materials that are environmentally, technologically, and culturally relevant, design approaches or one-off craft experiments are not enough. The symposium clearly demonstrated how deep, long-term collaborations between designers, scientists, engineers, and environmental researchers can enable research breakthroughs, improve development processes, and help share and leverage scientific knowledge.

Today, designers do not only “join” multidisciplinary teams. They actively initiate and orient their work toward domains that were previously considered “out of bounds”. They help rethinking materials by bringing their systemic thinking, contextual sensitivity, and the ability to imagine new material futures, which in turn attract interest from scientific partners. Alongside them, collaborators from scientific and engineering fields – chemists, biologists, mechanical and materials engineers – contribute theoretical and practical knowledge that supports the transition from exploratory work to scientific and applied discoveries.

As presented in the symposium, many of these collaborations are made possible by international research frameworks supported by institutions such as the European Union, national research councils, or dedicated academic initiatives. Where institutional support exists, connections between design and science can move from one-off experiments to structured practice, leading not only to innovative projects, but also to deeper shifts in research and development culture.

Environmental and ecological approaches to material design

The connection between materials and sustainability is fundamental. Material use is one of the main ways in which human activity harms the planet. This happens through extraction, production, consumption, and disposal. It is a full cycle that includes mining finite resources, energy and water use, pollutant emissions, harmful working conditions, transport and packaging, and finally problematic end-of-life scenarios involving waste, pollution, and environmental and health risks.

This is why there is growing recognition of the need to move away from an anthropocentric view, in which materials are seen only as tools to serve humans, and toward ecological and ecocentric perspectives. These see materials as part of broader systems of life, environment, time, and mutual relationships. At the symposium, this shift was not presented as an abstract theoretical move, but as concrete practice.

Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten offered a precise design interpretation of a statement attributed to Julian Vincent: “In nature, shape is cheap and material is expensive.” She compared how a single material in nature, such as cellulose, can be the basis for countless applications, forms, textures, and structures, with the way humans use countless materials, often sourced from all over the world, for a single application such as a smartphone. This comparison became a starting point for rethinking production systems, resource efficiency, and the intelligence embedded in natural systems compared with the excesses of human industry.

Valentin Brück presented an ecocentric approach to material design that uses speculative design as a tool to imagine and plan desirable futures. His talk encapsulated a call that appeared in other lectures as well: expand the definition of “users” so that it includes not only humans, but also plants, bacteria, soil, and entire ecosystems. Only then can we build a foundation for sensitive, sustainable, systemic planning.

From my perspective as a researcher and specialist in material innovation, this integration of sustainability and innovation is inseparable. It is not possible to design for the future without addressing the climate crisis, resource constraints, regulatory shifts, technological change, and geopolitical dynamics. Design that ignores these dimensions may appear innovative on the surface, but in practice it is planning for a future that will never arrive because it disregards the changing environmental, economic, and social realities.

The potential in Israel

Alongside what is happening in Europe, there is already an emerging foundation in Israel for material development grounded in design and sustainability. In research I conducted at Tel Aviv University, I found that around 11 percent of recent industrial design graduation projects focused on material development, and around half of those centered on environmental materials. Beyond the numbers, it is clear that design students are curious and eager to engage with environmental challenges through materials, though they usually do so intuitively, driven by personal motivation.

This is precisely where a major opportunity lies. The potential connections between design and the natural sciences, engineering, environmental studies, local craft, and traditional industry have not yet been fully explored in Israel. Academia, accelerators, and local research institutes can build the infrastructure needed to elevate existing initiatives and create a broader, systemic, cross-disciplinary field of activity.

There are already early signs of this future. We see new academic courses focused on materials from a design and interdisciplinary perspective, start-ups emerging from material-focused design graduation projects, and ad hoc collaborations between designers, architects, and researchers that generate new methods and scientific insights. These are the first shoots of a growing field.

Given the growing global demand for alternative sources, technologies, and applications in the materials domain, a country like Israel, whose industry to date has focused mainly on a relatively narrow range of materials, can leverage its distinctive assets – excellent designers, curious researchers, a strong technology sector, and the well-known “Israeli mindset” – to become, if it chooses, a new hub for design-led material innovation. This would require building collaborations, knowledge infrastructures, and new development pathways.

In conclusion

The symposium sharpened something I recognize from my own practice. Innovation in the world of materials does not arise only from breakthrough technologies. It is also born in small labs and workshops, at the meeting points between disciplines, through curious investigation, hands-on work, and systemic thinking.

I operate as an independent professional because I see a real need. Despite the genuine potential, the field in Israel is still in its early stages. Having worked in this space for more than a decade, I see it as important to translate and connect knowledge, between what is happening here and what is happening elsewhere in the world, and the other way around. My aim is to expose different audiences to emerging trends, connect designers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry partners, and help build a field that can generate professional, environmental, and economic value.

I believe that in order to act differently, we first need to think differently, and to encounter examples that point us toward new directions. That is the first step. For me, this symposium was one such example, and I am glad to share some of the insights that came out of it.

For more information about IMD – The Institute for Materialdesign and Advanced Material Studies:

https://imd-materialdesign.com/](https://imd-materialdesign.com/

And if you are already in the Frankfurt area, I highly recommend visiting the Palmengarten botanical garden and discovering far more than fifty shades of green.