Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper joins the debate on emerging materials and on the attention that design reserves for scientific innovations, interpreting them in terms of the trends and application scenarios being opened for design research. The two main trends in technical and scientific evolution - intelligence and bio - are considered in order to propose a new definition of Bio-smart Materials that takes into account the development of scientific research with its advances and the influence it has in industrial product scenarios. "Bio-smart" defines the new quality criteria of design, in which materials will play a priority role.