This is great. I used to be an avid reader of Amiga World, and this reminded me of something in one of Mojo's columns. (Mojo was a VFX supervisor on Babylon 5, which made heavy use of the Video Toaster, and LightWave – he wrote a monthly Op-Ed for Amiga World.) I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like, "If you go to film school, make sure you study things other than film. Otherwise, when you get out of school, you'll have nothing to make films about."

Edit: Ah, it was not Amiga World. It was 'New Tekniques'

Really cool idea, however I'm wondering how necessary it was to hire an outside group. Why not just dedicate a space and slowly fill it with items that employees find interesting?

I do remember an article awhile ago about a company (perhaps 37signals) that kept a collection of different textures/materials to use as inspiration. I always thought this was a great idea.

Inventables used to provide monthly subscriptions to design teams of "interesting stuff" - much like what was provided here.

They pivoted though - now they provide hardware to designers directly: https://www.inventables.com/

For more reflections on physical design watch the documentary on Charles Eames, trailer below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YMzmuBBBzo