Virtuhab portal: Materioteca with focus on analysis of sustainability in design – focused on residential units

Abstract

At present, the design of new products requires the union of technical, aesthetic, economic and environmental factors. In this context, the choice of materials and constructive processes becomes integrated into the design, planned throughout the product life cycle. The eff ectiveness of this choice depends on the effi ciency of the correlated factors mentioned above. Finding such information is a hard task and often disappointing. The inclusion of sustainability adds in another variable to the already complex equation. As a consequence, studies on the sustainability of materials need to be made available for designers. This paper presents a proposal to fi ll this gap, using a materioteca with a new concept: in addition to samples of materials and technical information, it features a full description of the economic, social and environmental sustainability impact of each material. The results obtained so far show that it is possible to empower designers with an assessment of the sustainability of each material compared to other similar ones, allowing for a relevant set of projective information.