Conclusion
Conclusion
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This research examines the adoption and selection of bio-based materials as a crucial step toward sustainable product development. It highlights the importance of combining technical and experiential perspectives, which engineers and designers have traditionally explored separately. Engineers focus on tangible factors such as cost, tensile strength, and manufacturability, while designers emphasize intangible qualities, including sensory appreciation, meaning, and material identity. This gap has limited the holistic understanding of emerging materials and creates more challenges to the widespread adoption of bio-based alternatives.
The research developed and tested a novel material profile tool that integrates technical and experiential properties. Through material explorations and workshops involving design and engineering practitioners, the study identified shared and different approaches to material selection. It revealed barriers and opportunities influencing bio-based material selection. These findings provide insights into the challenges faced in bio-based materials product development and propose a multidisciplinary approach to material characterization that combines the two perspectives as equally important.
Practical Level
The tool facilitates discussions on the adoption of bio-based materials. For instance, the opportunity to set aside production costs enables the exploration of alternative pathways to make bio-based materials viable. By separating the decision-making from this constraint, designers, engineers, and manufacturers can explore new perspectives and identify opportunities that align with the growing interest in sustainable options. However, these discussions remain at a general or initial stage because, in reality, material production costs are crucial. Consequently, cost considerations must be part of the discussion to have a realistic impact on the widespread adoption of emerging alternatives, and the approach must include these considerations.
Conceptual Level
The tool emphasizes the integration of technical and experiential perspectives to foster dialogue between design and engineering practitioners regarding the potential of bio-based materials. These discussions primarily focused on introducing experiential properties as qualities that are shaped through human interaction with materials or products. A limitation of the tool and the integration of the two perspectives is that presenting experiential properties poses challenges. These properties are difficult to understand through descriptive text alone without physical samples or visual aids. Consequently, it is challenging to associate experiential attributes with specific materials in this format.
Pedagogical Level
The proposed tool and integration of technical and experiential perspectives offer a holistic evaluation of materials and facilitate informed decision-making in design and engineering contexts. By addressing technical and experiential dimensions, this tool aims to support the adoption of bio-based materials, ensuring they meet technical performance demands while considering user and societal values. While constraints remain a significant barrier, fostering deeper conversations and exposing practitioners to tools like the one proposed in this research can inspire innovative solutions to advance the selection and adoption of bio-based materials.
Future Opportunities
This upcoming phase will focus on refining the tool into a practical resource that bridges technical and experiential properties to support better material selection and decision-making. It will also address concerns identified in the first test, mainly related to data accessibility and visualization, ensuring the tool becomes more intuitive and usable.
Future iterations of Materia should prioritize improving usability through simplification and the incorporation of physical samples or visual elements to enhance understanding. Materia also presents potential beyond its current form, possibly evolving into a template or even an open-source software platform that supports the characterization of materials by integrating technical and experiential properties. However, a critical challenge to address will be the subjectivity and context-dependency of experiential properties, which require careful handling for reliable application.
Materia could be further adapted to serve both academic and professional contexts. In academia, it could function as a teaching resource for sustainability education, helping students at various stages gain a deeper understanding of material selection by integrating technical and experiential considerations. This would encourage early-stage designers and engineers to develop a more holistic perspective on materials and sustainability.
In professional settings, the tool could serve as both an exploratory and communication resource, offering practitioners a different lens through which to approach material selection. By emphasizing the importance of human interaction and experiential qualities, Materia can facilitate more informed and collaborative decisions, particularly in the adoption of bio-based materials. Its ongoing development has the potential to stimulate discussions and contribute meaningfully to the broader transition toward renewable resource-based materials in product development, promoting a more holistic and sustainable approach to material selection.
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