Light.Touch.Matters selects Minima

Minima have been selected for Light.Touch.Matters, an EU funded research project aimed at producing design-led smart materials.

February 2013: A smart placemat as diet coach, a wristband as medication reminder or a force-sensitive grip to express anxiety: these are just some of the potential applications of smart materials that will be developed by the new EU-funded project ‘Light.Touch.Matters’, which will run for 3.5 years.

In this project, designers and scientists join forces to develop a fully-new generation of smart materials that can sense touch and respond with luminescence. The base technologies are the ‘piezo plastics’ developed recently at TU Delft, and organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs. Being thin, flexible and formable, these ‘light touch matters’ promise to revolutionize product interface design to that eventually “the product becomes the interface”.

During the project, various technology demonstrators will be developed for the domain of care & well-being, where intuitive-to-use design is especially important, but spin-off to other domains (e.g. automotive) will also be addressed.

This project is a unique cooperation between product designers and material scientists, with 17 partners from 9 EU countries. It includes eight leading design SME’s, four universities, one research institute and four additional partners. Its senior research staff includes renowned scientists such as profs. Roberto Verganti, Pim Groen and Mark Miodownik. Two external panels – one for manufacturers, one for end-users – ensure fast industry uptake of the project results.

For more information see: www.light-touch-matters-project.eu