Blog: Materials Library

Materials Library Featured in Book and Award-Winning Film

29-6-23

Materials Library Featured in Book and Award-Winning Film

The Materials Library's work on Sensory Prosthetics features in a brand new book that’s being launched today, as well as an award-winning film that has featured in Nowness. More

Paid Internships at the Institute of Making

05-12-23

Paid Internships at the Institute of Making

Fancy joining our team at the Institute of Making as an Intern? Applications are now open for UCL students and staff. More

Materials Love Letters From You

17-3-21

Materials Love Letters From You

Following on from our Valentines-themed celebration of materials, we wanted to share a selection of the love letters sent by you, our wonderful community of materials experts and enthusiasts. More

Materials Love Letters

11-2-21

Materials Love Letters

Join us to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Institute of Making style: by geeking out about materials in a series of love letters to alluring volcanic rocks, intense ceramic glazes, sticky gels, bounteous pencils, sulphurous vegetables and lustrous fibres, written by some of our wonderful team. More

What’s in our Materials Library stocking?

17-12-20

What’s in our Materials Library stocking?

We’re starting to feel festive here at the Institute of Making, so we’ve dusted off some favourite winter holiday-themed materials for the occasion. Now…what have we got in our Materials Library stocking for you? More

Materials Up Close & Personal: ACRYLIC

17-7-20

Materials Up Close & Personal: ACRYLIC

This week we gaze into the hidden depths of ACRYLIC, a material we can thank for pearly dentures, prosthetic eyes and the perspex sneeze screens structuring our post-lockdown shopping experiences. Read on to find out what Cardi B’s glorious nail art and David Hockney’s technicolour scenes of Californian suburbia have in common, and why ‘tickling the ivories’ should really be called ‘tickling the acrylics’. More

Materials Up Close & Personal: WAX

03-7-20

Materials Up Close & Personal: WAX

This week’s Materials Library blog post gets lyrical about WAX, exploring its far-reaching and global relationship with divinity, art and fashion, examining the ancient roots of your waxed hairdo, probing why you shouldn’t be so hasty to remove your earwax, and delving into why vegans might want to be careful with their lemons. More

Materials Up Close & Personal: SALT

11-6-20

Materials Up Close & Personal: SALT

Scrape the surface of SALT in this week's blog examining our physiological need for simple sodium chloride, its hidden colonial history, and its cultural importance in food preservation, road safety, textile dyeing and soap manufacture. More

Materials Up Close & Personal: CORK

04-6-20

Materials Up Close & Personal: CORK

We’re back with a new Materials Library blog, and it’s a CORK-er. Pop open this cheeky little number to explore how this buoyant, waxy, natural foam has been supporting sailors, architects, wine lovers, scientists and medics for millenia. More

Materials Up Close & Personal: OVER TO YOU

20-5-20

Materials Up Close & Personal: OVER TO YOU

This week we have put together a medley of the wonderful materials musings that you’ve shared with us over the last 5 weeks. It’s been wonderful to get a sneak peek into the substances you’ve been sharing lockdown with, and the new appreciation you’ve gained from meditating on your household matter. Now over to you! More

Materials Up Close & Personal: RUBBERS

14-5-20

Materials Up Close & Personal: RUBBERS

Relax into RUBBERS, our latest ‘up close and personal’ material encounter. In this ode to erasers we explore the simple piece of stationary that we turn to when we’ve made a mistake, tracing the relationship between rubbers and mouldy bread, volcanic ash, Amazonian forests, and the Roman god Vulcan. More

Materials Up Close & Personal: TOWELS

07-5-20

Materials Up Close & Personal: TOWELS

All the debate about whether to mask or not to mask in the news has got us thinking about the importance of cloth for cleaning, filtering and wicking moisture, prompting an absorbing look at TOWELS. More

Materials Up Close & Personal: CARDBOARD

30-4-20

Materials Up Close & Personal: CARDBOARD

Tear into our latest up close and personal encounter with CARDBOARD. Think outside the box about the humble, fibrous material that has inspired architects, aerospace engineers and scientists developing mechanical metamaterials. You won’t be (card)bored! More

Materials Up Close & Personal: BLU-TACK

22-4-20

Materials Up Close & Personal: BLU-TACK

Following on from last week’s tour of tarmac, let’s stick (ha!) with another adhesive substance: that staple of the home office, blu-tack. Known for its powdery blue colour and distinctive adhesive qualities, read on to find out how uses of this mundane material can be anything but. More

Materials Up Close & Personal: TARMAC

16-4-20

Materials Up Close & Personal: TARMAC

Maybe you can see the road from your window, or have been pacing the local pavements recently during your daily constitutional? If so, you might have noticed this sometimes sticky, sometimes oily, sometimes crumbly, hash-brown of a material underfoot. Our new weekly series of Materials Library profiles journeys into the expansive inner lives and backstories of everyday substances that we surround ourselves with, but that we often don’t even notice. More

Materials Up Close & Personal - a New Materials Library Series

15-4-20

Materials Up Close & Personal - a New Materials Library Series

We are excited to announce a new weekly series of Materials Library profiles. At a time when staying at home has made our worlds significantly smaller, join us on a journey into the expansive inner lives and backstories of everyday substances and stuff; the silent and humble materials that we surround ourselves with, but that we often don’t even notice. More

Marvellous Medical Materials: Stainless Steel - Part Two

01-12-17

Marvellous Medical Materials: Stainless Steel - Part Two

In this series of blog posts, Sarah Wilkes (Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the Institute) gets over-excited about the ways that materials like silicone rubber and silver impact on our health and wellbeing. This post is the second in a two-parter that explores the gradual historical domination of stainless steel in surgical tools and medical implants, its health risks and rewards from the point of view of a variety of actors (including the patient undergoing hip replacement, the airplane passenger and the welder) and its role in infection control in the modern hospital. More

Marvellous Medical Materials: Stainless Steel - Part One

08-11-17

Marvellous Medical Materials: Stainless Steel - Part One

In this series of blog posts, Sarah Wilkes (Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the Institute) gets over-excited about the ways that materials like silicone rubber and silver impact on our health and wellbeing. This post is one of a two-parter that explores the gradual historical domination of stainless steel in surgical tools and medical implants, its health risks and rewards from the point of view of a variety of actors (including the patient undergoing hip replacement, the airplane passenger and the welder) and its role in infection control in the modern hospital. More

Marvellous Medical Material of the Moment: Soap

05-6-17

Marvellous Medical Material of the Moment: Soap

In this series of blog posts Sarah Wilkes, Wellcome Trust research fellow at the Institute, gets over-excited about the ways in which materials like silicone rubber and silver impact on our health and wellbeing. This post takes an in-depth and wide-ranging look at saponaceous substances! More

Curious Matters: HDPE Plastic Waste

02-4-14

Curious Matters: HDPE Plastic Waste

This slightly green tinted, meringue-shaped blob is a sample of HDPE waste material, and is produced during the process of recycling HDPE plastic from used milk bottles into food-grade standard material. More

That’s the stuff
Play

13-3-13

That’s the stuff

"Metals that cry, living concrete and a handcuffed Texan's briefcase: the diversity of the materials we create says a lot about us" This week's New Scientist puts the Materials Library under the microscope. More