LibGuides: Architecture: Materials for Design

Parsons Resources

Healthy Materials Lab
An information-rich guide containing a directory of healthier building products, and tools & guides for the design student/professional. The Lab also provides courses and works on projects to promote healthier materials.
Material Order
Utilizing and developing standards and best practices, the Material Order consortium provides a community-based approach to the management of design material collections with federated search access among participating institutions, including Parsons, RISD, and Harvard.
Parsons Making Center
Access to state-of-the-art and traditional tools at Parsons facilitates your creative growth and gives you hands-on experience using everything you’ll need as a maker. Extensive, adaptable work spaces are available at our new 28,000 square foot Making Center hub, which opened in fall 2016 for student use, and at satellite making spaces across the university. In total, our making spaces comprise over 50,000 square feet. Professional technicians and facility managers are on hand to support individual student needs and to lead training sessions and workshops for students and faculty.

Materials Databases

BuildingGreen
This advertising-free database includes articles, reports, infographics, blog posts, and webcasts on sustainable materials, design strategies, building science, design process, and codes and certifications to support green buildings. It includes over 160 high-performance building case studies, and online versions of GreenSpec and Environmental Building News. This information is searchable and cross-referenced by CSI MasterFormat division, LEED credit, or green building topic.

Ecotextile News
Contact us for login information

Material Connexion
Material ConneXion is a materials consultancy that helps companies and scholars source advanced materials to enhance the performance, aesthetics and sustainability of their projects.

Material District
MaterialDistrict is the world’s leading match-making platform in the field of innovative materials. MaterialDistrict’s value as a high-end materials inspiration source is clear: R&D and design professionals of all industries are using our platform to discover new material solutions. Daily via MaterialDistrict.com, annually at MaterialDistrict Rotterdam and periodically throughout the year with traveling MaterialDistrict Expo, MaterialDistrict Talks, and MaterialDistrict Pop-Up events.
Mindful MATERIALS (mM)
The mindful MATERIALS (mM) Library is powered by and is connected to the Origin Hub. Manufacturers that use Origin can also request to publish their content to the mM Library.

How to Research Design Materials

Researching textiles? Check out the Textiles Research Guide.

Books

Search the library catalog for a book on the material. Books are nice because they are comprehensive and they combine images and text. You can perform an advanced search, searching in the Subject field, with Material Type-->Books.

You can also combine the material with additional keywords, such as glass + architecture or resin + design . It helps to do a little brainstorming. For example, if you are researching clay, you might want to look for books on pottery.

Google Books allows you to search inside of books. Copy and paste book titles and authors into the library catalog.

You can also search the full text of our ebook databases:

Ebook Central
An exhaustive selection of authoritative, scholarly e-books that combines ebook databases ebrary and EBL into one platform.

Reference

Use these databases to find encyclopedia entries on your material. Further readings can be located by searching the library catalog.

Credo Reference Academic Core
Credo Reference helps you start your research with 800+ full-text reference resources, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, subject handbooks, image collections, and videos, on a user-friendly online platform.
Bloomsbury Design Library
The Bloomsbury Design Library offers cross-searchable access to a broad and expanding range of encyclopedias, reference works, e-books, images, and more.

Consumer Trends

Stylus is an excellent source for information on how materials are being used in current, cutting-edge design and products.

Stylus
Stylus provides inspirational and informative research and relates it to prevailing consumer trends, acting as a catalyst to push the design industries to new levels.

Articles

Search design databases to see how materials are being discussed in art and design magazines and journals.

DAAI: Design and Applied Arts Index (ProQuest)
Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI) provides abstracts and bibliographic records for articles, news items, and reviews published in design and applied arts periodicals from 1973 onwards. DAAI covers both new designers and the development of design and the applied arts since the mid-19th century, surveying disciplines including ceramics, glass, jewellery, wood, metalsmithing, graphic design, fashion and clothing, textiles, furniture, interior design, architecture, computer aided design, Web design, computer-generated graphics, animation, product design, industrial design, garden design, and landscape architecture.
Art & Architecture Source
Formerly known as Art Source, Art & Architecture Source is an art research database that covers a broad range of subjects from fine, decorative and commercial art, to various areas of architecture and architectural design. It features full-text articles, indexing and abstracts for an array of journals, books and more.
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
This resource is based on the multi-volume index of the same name, which was published in 1963, collaborated by the Columbia University Avery Library collection. Now offered as an online database, it is the only comprehensive American guide to the past and current literature of architecture and design.