about
Material Sense is an independent organisation for materials innovation. Material Sense focusses on the materiality of products and our future environment, through design, development and research, giving room to experimentation and exploration. Since 2002 Material Sense makes the world of materials visible and tangible through travelling exhibitions, publications and inspiration lectures. We support the design and development process of new materials. Embodied material experiences are created through training by making use of our Materials Oriented Design approach - MOD. We start from the perspective of sensorial expression and the value of materials. Through interplay and interaction, materiality makes itself manifests in new products.
Material Sense delivers innovation strategies to support your materialization trajectories and develop products with the most optimal experience that fits into a sustainable society.
With our materials expertise we can create more material visibility to foster future applications. We support through sourcing and advise in the search for new or better alternatives for materials and material technologies.
We investigate in understanding sensoriality, for daily products applications and spaces and for special sensitivities, such as for visually impaired people.
Material Sense functions as a catalyst by connecting designers, scientists, educational institutes and cutting-edge companies, also experiencable in our curated exhibitions.
Material Sense masterclasses, trainings and workshops, will get you acquainted with our materialization methodologies.
WHERE (workfield)
HOW (our activities)
WHAT (services)
Simone de Waart is our founder and creative director. She designed and developed new materials since she graduated as material designer at Design Academy Eindhoven, and started Material Sense in 2002.
She advocates the choice of materials as a starting point in the creative exploration phase of the design process and she sees collaboration between design, industry, and science, as pivotal to this.
To support the design thinking process within companies she also took a master in Design Management.
Education is one of her tasks she loves to do and finds of great importance in the emerging field of materials innovation. She is lecturer at the Eindhoven University of Technology at the faculty of Industrial Design since 2002, and was connected to Design Academy Eindhoven as lecturer for more than ten years. She works as well as guest lecturer at Art-, and Design Academies and Universities worldwide.
Her work is published internationally in magazines and books like “Beyond Green” (NL) “Transmaterial” (US) “Material World” by Frame (NL),
AIT- Architektur in Detail (DE),
Surfaces, (IT) and ID+C (CN)
As materials expert, she also takes place in international panels and juries like IF material award. Dutch Design Awards, Dyson Sustainable Award, Green Design Competition and IF product design awards.
At Material Sense, we work with varying flexible teams build up specifically for the need of each project. We involve the required experts that fits our client’s assignment best and we source our people from our closely connected network of both young talents and experienced professionals.
"Materials matter as becoming meaningful interfaces of our designed world."
by Simone de Waart
"Everything starts as material and ends as a material."
by Peter Zumtor, Architect
"It's not what you look at that matters,
it's what you see."
by Henry David Thoreau
vision
When we founded our studio we choose a name that alludes to the sensorial properties of materials, the ‘common sense' idea of using specific materials to achieve better products, and the way we perceive materials using all our senses.
Material Sense lobbies for a materials-oriented design and development of products. Materials can mediate between our physical and digital world. We focus on aspects like the interactivity of materialized products, through embodied sensoriality and integration of technologies and the transformation towards a circular economy by developing alternatives like bio-circular and regeneratieve materials.
We believe in innovations driven by technology transfer and creative unexpected synergy between different worlds and views. We see materials as a new potential for innovation trajectories and new markets, driven by design.
approach
We advocate the selection of materials, their performative qualities and sensorial experience as a starting point in the design process. We are able to connect different fields; from science, industry, art and design to broaden and fuel the knowledgeand foster solutions.
We bring in our notion of societal trends and our knowledge in the field of new technologies.
Gaining materials insights can be achieved best when explored and experienced yourself, by the physical exploration of materials performance, properties and meaning. Within our MOD approach, developed by Simone de Waart, we have created different methods and tools to guide you in this creative process: working around ‘sensorial’ properties in every sense of the word, to trigger new ideas and bring new developments in line with the required user experience.
By sharing expertise and in collaboration in an early stage, new ways of utilizing materials are created and products will be materialized in a future proof way.
tickling your senses
creating inspiration
fuelling creativity
sparking innovation
Discovering the best materialization for your concepts makes the difference in becoming a successful product. When we work on innovation strategies we use design thinking methodologies and co-create with your expertise as client, sparked with our external expertise.