Material addicts: when open access becomes a cult

In recent years, the relationship between materials and designers has been profoundly transformed by the search for new forms of access through increasingly participatory and deep actions, progressively deeper and more participatory, by the processes of new materials' development and their scope. Up to the 1980s, the designer's approach to materials definition had mainly been indirect, given the clients' mediation, serving as interface between planning requirements and the choice of the most appropriate solutions in materials terms. The 90′ were the years of exponential growth in the number and types of new materials: a true expansion of implementation and expression opportunities. As a result, designers felt the need to understand and manage the possibilities offered by science and technological innovation to meet the increasingly complex demand of the market. The birth of Material Connexion, founded in 1997 in New York by George M. Beylerian, the first major "Materials Library", focused on the consultancy of new potential materials for architecture and design as well as their dissemination through databases and networks, marks an important step forward in the increasingly closer relationship between designers and materials. "Material Libraries" dedicated to design and architecture have thus delivered significant results.