I’m now in Yunfu Xinqu, a town which is only three years old. The government of China decided  to create a design innovation center in order to help marble industry. In China there is a lot of place like hotel, where you can see on the wall and the floor this kind of stone. Chinese so appreciate this material that actually they buy it from all over the world, Italy, . Now economy in China is not very good so marble factories are looking for new opportunities like make product using this material. As washing basin in marble is not really new, the goal of the design center is to look for innovation through design process to create new products.

Some manufactures uses CNC machines and in order to propose to their customers 3D surface. But it’s not enough to make differentiation between hundred companies I saw, selling more or less same product. There is also an other important issue. If you look at on youtube « marble process ». There also some companies which sell resin looks like marble. It’s light, cheap and « extrudable ».

The design studio I work for is set by the government as I said before to help Marble Industry in this region. But we also use other material like cement to design light for example. Even if most of time we sit in front of our computer using 3D or 2d software. I like to spend time with them: makers. They make mold and set machines to make prototype. I like to observe how they work with so accuracy, how they solve problem of demolding cement, non homogeneous drying of the material.