Cross-Cultural Ventures to Design Stone Products

Abstract

This paper is part of an ongoing research, addressing the design of stone products to guide materials to new applications in a reality that asks for local qualities, sustainability, and change. The authors present the thesis that unexpected materials can be obtained through the mix-combination of its basic components. Accidental materials speak through a complex network of interrelationships in relation to the context. So, the power of expressiveness can be obtained through the controlled mixture of its elementary components. In a world where things deliberately unstable are the raw material for the construction of unstable identities, it is urgent to be constantly attentive. It is necessary to ensure that the flexibility and the ability to adapt quickly follow changing patterns from the outside world. The study is based on a mixed practice and supports cross-fertilization and design-driven innovation to create cooperation between different mediators to communicate new meanings with the sense of future. The design process involved design students and the productive sector. The authors want to prove that it is possible to find innovative ways, looking for references in new scenarios that can determine innovation and guide the material to new applications that affirms globally by local qualities.