IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2011 - 11

location this fall and plans to open 10 locations throughout China by 2017. It also recently launched a new strategic partnership with online design and architecture resource Architonic that provides a preview of new additions to the material ConneXion library. users still pay a subscription fee to use the company’s online library, and much higher fees for samples and consulting services. Entrepreneur Zach kaplan perceived the potential of matchmaking designers with materials in 2002 when he cofounded Inventables, a subscription-based service that delivered a curated box of new, high-tech materials to designers, artists, and inventors. The service came for a fee—anywhere from $70,000 to $350,000 per year—making it impossible for small design firms to get a piece of the action. “If our true mission and vision is to help companies innovate, we’re doing a disservice to the world by locking it up with a subscription,” kaplan realized. Last year, he eliminated the subscription fee and opened the online Inventables product library to everyone. now, visitors with just a credit card can order a few yards or a few gallons of anything—from powerless illuminating tubing to resin-suspended stainless-steel coating—and have it delivered to their doorstep the next day. If a designer needs larger quantities, Inventables will connect them with the manufacturer. Larger companies, too, are realizing the benefits of this format, a sort of open-source product consultancy. kaplan

estimates that customers such as Herman miller, method Home, millerCoors, and Qualcomm drive 33 percent of Inventables’ business on any given day. Without a research budget but with plenty of research skills, many young designers are taking materials education into their own hands. When yong Ju Lee and brian brush of design collective Eb office won a commission to design a permanent media wall for salt Lake City’s science museum, The Leonardo, they turned to the Internet. With low cost and high sustainability in mind, they eventually located an unlikely material resource: a small, reprocessed plastics manufacturer in garfield, minnesota, called rPI. more likely to manufacture boat equipment than museum installations, the manufacturer nonetheless supplied high-density polyethylene panels that had the right amount of light transmittance for the designers’ LED-embedded wall. Just opened on october 8, the project couldn’t have worked out better, but brush admits that with the Internet-research approach, “you’re shooting from the hip.” online research can be mind-boggling. There’s a plethora of Web sites devoted to sustainable products and materials, such as greenbuilding.com’s greenspec Product guide with “over 2,200 environmentally preferable products” selected by the publication’s editors. DesignerPages, a robust manufacturer-generated search platform with

STAInLESS-STEEL CoATInG (Centerfold) Paint made of microscopic stainless-steel particles suspended in resin can be applied to indoor and outdoor surfaces.

FLExIBLE LEDS LED strips (left) can be cut and reconnected to a power source. Silicone extruded over a string of LEDs (right) creates a glowing light tube.

perspective

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2011