|
contents | events | |||||||||
| Material Vision ended successfully in Frankfurt am Main  The fifth edition of Material Vision – Trade Exhibition and Conference on Materials for Product Development, Design and Architecture – has ended successfully in Frankfurt am Main. As in previous years, Material Vision was held parallel to Techtextil from 24 to 26 May 2011. A total of 24,500 trade visitors from 96 countries attended the two events (2009: 23,902). 24 leading German materials manufacturers took advantage of Material Vision as a platform to present their innovations to an international audience of trade visitors from the fields of industrial design, product development and architecture. The exhibitors reserved particular praise for the large proportion of visitors from outside Germany. The best represented nations on the visitor side were Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, the Russian Federation and the USA.The leading materials suppliers presenting their latest products included Akzo Nobel, BASF, Quantum Glass / Saint Gobain, Sabic Innovative Plastics, Thyssen Krupp and Merck. Among the innovations to be seen were concrete, technical gels, high-performance plastics, bio-plastic, paint and varnish, steel, ceramic, glass, wood, nanotechnology and bio-materials. Subjects of importance for the sector are, for example, polymers made of renewable raw materials, full material recyclability, function integration, bionics, light and strong plastics. Synergetic effects for visitors were generated by the concurrent Techtextil, International Trade Fair for Technical Textiles and Nonwovens, where around 1,200 exhibitors presented their latest products and innovations for numerous areas of application including architecture, building, home design and automobile. On 25 May, 32 pioneering products, materials and semi-finished products were honoured with the Design Plus Award. The winners came from Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Spain. The international conference entitled ‘Designing the Weightless World’ was also a great success. 120 participants learned about the trend towards minimalism in product design and the role of materials innovations in this context. Six top speakers from the international design and research scene discussed their current projects and work. Once again, the ‘textiles4design’ special show was a magnet for visitors. Curated by designer and materials expert Nicola Stattmann, the exhibition presented 70 textile innovations from the range at Techtextil, with a good potential for use in product development and architecture. Another source of inspiration was the Café Lecture Forum with talks by exhibitors and designers. This was also the setting for a forum entitled ‘Material forms the product – quicker to the market with new materials’. The well-attended event of the ‘Hessen Nanotech’ campaign of the Hessian Ministry of Economics provided insights into the subjects of ‘’Innovations through creative professionals’ and ‘Materials and technologies from the research sector’. write your comments about the article :: © 2011 Construction News :: home page |