MEDIUM Award for Material of the Year

by Alison Zingaro

Concrete Cloth (Courtesy of Concrete Canvas)

The Romans may have invented it, but concrete didn't officially come of age until the mid-18th century, when a British engineer perfected the first modern formula for this now ubiquitous material. More than two hundred years and many variations later, and concrete has undergone yet another transformation ─ this time in the form of a groundbreaking, cement-impregnated flexible fabric known as Concrete Cloth.

This impressive technology, developed by the UK-based company Concrete Canvas, has just been awarded Material ConneXion's first MEDIUM Award for Material of the Year, an honor established by the company to recognize outstanding achievement in the field of materials innovation. Chosen from among the hundreds of advanced materials and processes juried into Material ConeXion's library in the past year, the winner is distinguished "not only for its technical ability," says Material ConneXion's founder and CEO George M. Beylerian, "but for its capacity to make a lasting impact on our lives."

Concrete Cloth's unique flexibility, which allows it to be molded, folded and draped to suit a variety of needs, has made it a fitting choice for this year's winner. "With the simple addition of water, Concrete Cloth makes it possible to create safe, durable, non-combustible structures for a wide range of commercial, military and humanitarian uses," explains Dr. Andrew H. Dent, Material ConneXion's Vice President, Library & Materials Research. The material is "especially important for enabling the construction of rapidly deployable shelter and food storage structures in disaster relief situations,” he adds.

Architects and Concrete Canvas co-founders Peter Brewin and William Crawford first developed the flexible concrete fabric for use in their inflatable "building in a bag" shelters, which expand to a size of 54 square meters and are ready for occupancy in just twenty-four hours. Now that Concrete Cloth is commercially available on its own, the material is proving to be a promising solution for a wide range of applications, from lining ditches, ponds and trackways to strengthening military fortifications. And the fact that it comes conveniently rolled in long bolts that can be easily shipped anywhere the world is high among its virtues.

"Taken together, the MEDIUM Award for Material of the Year winner and eleven honorable mentions represent some of today's most influential commercially available materials and processes."

Smart Sponge

Connex

Pebax Renew

Innegra S

LSR 7070

OCTAMOLD

Xylogramm

Infigure

Metal Architectural Surfaces

Curran

Millad NX8000

In addition to Concrete Cloth, Material ConneXion has recognized its eleven MEDIUM Award for Material of the Year finalists with honorable mention distinction. This eclectic group of materials and processes, whose influence extends across multiple industries and design disciplines, paints an exciting picture of the state of materials innovation today.

Among them is AbTech Industries’ groundbreaking Smart Sponge® technology (MC#6485-01), an advancement that is making enormous strides to combat water pollution through its ability to safely and effectively remove low levels of oil from the environment. This foam-like material can absorb up to three times its weight in hydrocarbons, converting the pollutants into a stable solid for easy recycling.

Processes such as Objet Geometries' Connex Multiple Material Printers (MC#6526-01) have been recognized for improving how companies bring new products to life. As the first printer to jet multiple materials of different properties into the same object (a hard brush with soft bristles, for instance), Connex can accelerate the time it takes for a product to get to market by enabling the rapid prototyping of models that are closer in form to the desired end result. So far the technology has been used by manufacturers of toys, medical devices, electronics, and sports equipment, and has even made its mark in the film industry by helping to print hundreds of 3D models for the 2009 stop-animation film Coraline.

Great advances in sustainability can be seen in materials like Arkema's pebax® Rnew (MC#0664-05), an elastomer comprised of up to 95% plant-based materials which significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions when compared to equivalent fossil-fuel based products, and in Cellucomp's Curran (MC#6248-01), a high-strength biofiber formulated from degraded carrots with a stiffness that rivals carbon fiber. Both solutions have found their way into high-performance sporting goods: pebax® Rnew was recently used in a line of ski boots from Italian manufacturer Scarpa and Curran forms the basis of a radical new fishing rod from Element 21, aptly named the Carrot Stix™. Solutions like Milliken Chemical's Millad® NX8000 (MC# 6469-01), on the other hand, are significant for allowing companies to choose more sustainable materials previously unspecified because they didn't meet their design standards. This chemical additive dramatically enhances the clarity of polypropylene ─ a clean, low-toxicity and recyclable plastic ─ thus enabling its use in a wider range of consumer products and packaging.

Other honorable mentions, like Innegrity's Innegra S fiber (MC#6439-01), Momentive Performance Material Liquid Silicone Robber LSR 7070 (MC#5352-02), and Octamold Technologies’ OCTAMOLD (MC#6320-01), have been cited for increasing construction capabilities, improving performance, and lowering costs in applications as diverse as defense protection systems, optics and shipbuilding.

As the lightest high-performance fiber on the market, Innegra S delivers superior strength while reducing weight and provides a lower cost alternative to Kevlar for composite ballistics fabrics. In addition to these protective benefits, the fiber has the potential to increase the durability and lifespan of host of other products, as recently demonstrated in its application to Formula One race cars, surfboards, and a new high-performance concept kayak from Wilderness Systems.

The groundbreaking transparent silicone LSR 7070 is remarkable for its outstanding clarity, efficient and economical manufacturing process, and its ability to achieve highly complex optical components that surpass those made with traditional thermoplastic materials or glass. Originally developed for the manufacture of light conductor systems for mobile telephone backlighting, the material is now advancing the production of optical fibers and automotive lenses and may even be of interest to makers of household and healthcare products.

OCTAMOLD is a three-dimensional, lightweight honeycomb material whose structure is derived from the shape of joined soap bubbles. While the material offers lower processing costs when compared to other types of honeycomb paneling, its real advantage is its ability to hold screws and other hardware in its form. This seemingly simple innovation greatly improves OCTAMOLD’s functionality when compared to its more traditional counterparts, giving the material an added edge in marine applications, as well as in furniture and auto-body part manufacturing.

Last but not certainly not least are three honorable mentions cited for pushing technological boundaries to create aesthetic effects that can transform architectural and interior spaces. Keil GmbH’s Xylogramm (MC#6381-02) employs an exceptional use of CNC routing techniques to create elaborate decorative panels with extraordinary three dimensional designs, while Vestige Veneer’s Infigure (MC#6447-01) process manipulates the cellular structure in wood to produce dramatic depth effects and a virtually limitless range of complex patterning in wood veneers. The third innovation, Metal Architectural Surfaces by Quin Media Arts & Sciences (MC#5675-05), is a process that perforates sheet metal into small light-reflecting discs to create large-scale imagery on exterior rainscreen cladding. The resulting images can change based on lighting conditions and the viewers position, exhibiting a remarkable pairing of form and function that eliminates the need for printed or painted graphics on building facades.

Taken together, the MEDIUM Award for Material of the Year winner and eleven honorable mentions represent some of today’s most influential commercially available materials and processes. Material ConneXion will present an exhibition of these extraordinary solutions, which hail from Canada, Germany, Israel, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, in its New York City showroom from January 11-February 19, 2010. Large format samples will be displayed alongside cutting-edge application examples to give the public an opportunity to see and interact with the advanced material solutions that are having the greatest impact on design worldwide.

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