Sustainability Resources in the NYSID Library: Books + Resources on Green Materials

The NYSID Library maintains a subscription to Material ConneXion, an online database of advanced, innovative and sustainable materials and processes that serves as a leading resource for all disciplines of design development, including interior design, architecture, and product design.

What Can I Find on the Material ConneXion Database?

Material ConneXion maintains the world's larges subscription-based materials library with 10,000+ materials from 6,000+ manufacturers. These include polymers, carbon-based materials, glass, metals, cement-based materials as well as product information, technical specifications, application information, manufacturer and distributor contact information, material developer profiles, and material images.

How Does Material ConneXion Select Materials?

Materials are selected by a rigorous quarterly review process that relies on an independent jury of design practitioners to determine whether a new material or process is worthy of inclusion. Watch their Archived webcasts to find out more!

Creating a user profile with your nysid.edu email gives you access to Building Green's partner site Designer Pages, a designer-friendly comprehensive product research platform that incorporates BuildingGreen filters and data.

• On BuildingGreen, select Product Guidance >> See Product Database >> Designer Pages and the orange “Get full access” button.
• You will then be asked to register for Designer Pages using your nysid.edu email. 

The most recent BuildingGreen Guide to Product Certifications as well as Ecolabels are available to NYSID students. (Please log into the NYSID Portal before accessing the report on the Library Resources page under the "Student" drop-down menu.) Provided in the report are overviews of key green certifications that include multiple building product sectors as well as information on why green product certification is valuable, and what green certification represents. Regulatory standard development, as well as information on working with certifications and understanding their reliability is included in the report along with a chart on how product certifications and ecolabels contribute to whole-building certifications and advice on looking beyond certifications to details such as how a product works, cost and where a product was produced.

The Healthy Materials Lab, a design research lab at Parsons School of Design is "dedicated to a world in which people's health is placed at the center of all design decisions."  Their website offers material collections, case studies and projects, and a learning hub for materials research.