Toronto Interior Design Show

Thursday, January 16, 2020 10:00 am - Friday, January 17, 2020 6:00 pm EST (GMT -05:00)

IDS brings together over 53,000 of the world's leading products, companies and change-makers to inspire and transform the future of design.

Celebrating and promoting design in Canada and across the world, IDS presents the best in design and thought leadership from emerging local designers to international legacy brands. Over the last two decades, design has shifted from the aesthetics of style to a powerful tool for change. This year, IDS looks back at its history and ahead to its future. Hindsight may be 20/20, but at IDS, foresight is our focus. 

MAD Lab – Material Architectures and Bio-Inspired Design Friday at 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
David Correa, Assistant Professor

In nature, materials are expensive so every design solution must be highly intelligent. The MAD Lab seminar will provide insights into bio-inspired design strategies that are shaping new technologies and challenging designers to look at the world in new ways. The seminar looks at what lobsters can teach us about structures, how learning from the pine scale is changing homes in New Zealand and how understanding the sand dollar may change the way buildings are made. From the micro-structure of cells, the meso-structures of tissues and bones or the anatomical features of plants, living things have a lot to teach us about high performance and beautiful design.

Plan your visit.


About MAD Lab

The Material Architectures and Bio-Inspired Design Lab is a research platform that leverages industry sponsored and academically funded research to challenge conventional practices in design, architecture, engineering and manufacturing. Working across scales, from the micro-structure of organic tissue and bio-inspired applications to the macro-scale of buildings, landscapes and socio-political environments, we are creating an integrative setting to support research that can operate between material science and architectural theory, bridging connections to building construction with an awareness of material ecologies and global economies.

Our research currently includes large-scale robotically-fabricated timber structures, ceramic 3-d printing, programmable and stimulus responsive materials, but also explorations of the mnemonics of plaster casting and studies on the social and ecological implications of material practices globally. The Material Architectures and Bio-Inspired Design Lab actively supports graduate level research and works closely with faculty at the University of Waterloo to maintain an extensive range of global research partners.

David Correa, MAD Lab Director
Assistant Professor 
Waterloo Architecture
Maya Przybylski
Associate Professor / Undergraduate Officer
Waterloo Architecture
Jane Hutton
Associate Professor / Graduate Officer
Waterloo Architecture
Anne Bordeleau
O’Donovan Director
Waterloo Architecture