Special Collections: Materials Collection at the Frances Loeb Library

Material Order SEARCH is the collaborative online materials catalog that currently searches the materials collections of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and Columbia University GSAPP Preservation Technology Lab (Avery Library).

The Building Stone Collection at the Harvard Mineralogical & Geological Museum consists of nearly 200 specimens and has a strong focus on New England Building Stones and Ornamental Stones that were popular in the early 1900s.

In natural metabolisms, sometimes referred to a g-i-y, or grow-it yourself, organisms make our materials, as is the case with kombucha leather or mushroom foams from introduced feedstocks. Created metabolisms use biologically derived ingredients to fabricate materials with lab equipment, such as starch-, gelatin- or agar- based bioplastics. Some example processes can be viewed in the RISD Nature Lab Bioplastic Guidebook.

The Donghia healthier Materials Library at Parsons School of Design is a resource center dedicated to helping designers make responsible materials decisions. With curated product collections and frameworks for evaluating materials, it offers guiding strategies and hands-on examples of products making positive impacts on human health, environmental justice, and social equity.

The Fisher Fine Arts Materials Library hosts samples ranging from traditional construction materials to emergent and novel samples such as Vanta Black, electronic paint, and seaweed insulation. The aim of the collection is to bring together innovation and creativity in order to advance conceptualization through tactile exploration.

The Materials Library at the University College London is a collection of some of the most wondrous materials on earth, gathered from sheds, labs, grottoes and repositories around the world. It is a resource, laboratory, studio, and playground for the curious and material-minded to conduct hands-on research through truly interdisciplinary inquiry and innovation.

The Manning Rare Woods Collection at the Rhode Island School of Design contains boards of rare species, highly figured grain, and/or very large dimensions offering students and faculty the opportunity to utilize wood species of outstanding beauty and value. Woods are available for academic use by faculty and student request. 4" x .5" x 4" samples are also available to view and check-out for reference purposes from the RISD Fleet Library Materials Collection. Captured on a RISD Nature Lab microscope, the magnification views found in this collection are from wood shaving samples of the end grain, tangent, and radial planes at x100 and x400 to reveal the intricate cellular structure of each species.

The Materials Lab houses a circulating, ever-expanding collection of material product samples - comprising one of the largest academic collections in the world. The collection allows students, faculty, and other material enthusiasts to discover, research and interact with a wide spectrum of material systems, technologies and fabrication techniques.

The collection features material samples reflecting current building and design markets with a particular focus on smart, emerging and sustainable materials and technologies.