Solving problems through design is a core goal at Herman Miller. Because materials are an integral part of our designs, they can solve problems, too. In this segment, third in a series on Herman Miller materials design, Susan Lyons discusses the possibilities of materials and how they play a key role in problem-solving design.

“We spend a lot of time out and about, looking for materials that we may have no idea what we’re going to do with them,” says Lyons. Our job is then to ask, “How can we possibly begin to use this? What could we do with it? What could it turn into?”

The answers to these questions sometimes come naturally. “Nature is the most efficient designer,” she has said, and the best innovations already exist in nature. GreenShield, a sustainable nanotechnology textile finish, mimics the lotus leaf’s “micro-roughness,” repelling dirt and oil naturally. By experimenting with GreenShield and our own materials, we developed Quilty—a high performance textile that stays clean because of its design, not chemicals.

Possibility is one of five material design principles: honesty, utility, economy, pleasure, and possibility.

On the home page, there’s an intriguing chromatic arrangement of Herman Miller’s entire Materials offering—the textiles, translucents, laminates, woods, and veneers that adorn Herman Miller products and help make them durable and eco-friendly. The page gives you an overall idea of the depth and structure of the Materials Program.

From there, you can narrow down and sort your selections as you like. With every choice, you see swatches of your picks, and detailed, printable, e-mailable information is a click away for each swatch. It’s so simple to view which materials are available on what products, plus (better yet) which materials are shared by different products. Really, you can do all kinds of stuff. So give it a spin, and tell us what you think.

The Materials website is designed to be used hand in hand with the new Materials Collection—a bound set of 15 books containing physical samples of all Herman Miller textiles and finishes. I’ll have more about that in my next post a week from now.