1st Edition
Material Matters Architecture and Material Practice
Bringing together texts and work by theorists and practitioners who are making material central to their work, this book reflects the diverse areas of inquiry which are expanding current material discourse. Focusing on the cultural, political, economic, technological and intellectual forces which shape material practices in architecture, the contributors draw on disciplines ranging from philosophy, history and pedagogy to art practice and digital and low-tech fabrication.
By paying critical attention to material, a wide range of issues emerge which are otherwise excluded from architectural discourse, issues that shape and determine the buildings we make, the processes we use and the ways we understand them.
Beautifully illustrated and designed, this book is a unique collection which will be of great interest to architectural practitioners and theorists who want to consider the wider implications of material practice, and to students who are developing their own approach to making buildings.
Introduction: Architecture and Material Practice Katie Lloyd Thomas. Plans to Matter: Towards a History of Material Possibility Andrew Benjamin. A Royal Gittern from the British Museum Niall McLaughlin. Plenums: Re-Thinking Matter, Geometry and Subjectivity Peg Rawes. Gordon Matta-Clark: Matter, Materiality, Entropy, Alchemy Stephen Walker. Marx Matters or Aesthetics, Technology, and the Spirit of Matter Jon Goodbun. The Thinking Hand Raoul Bunschoten. Material Imprecision Elizabeth Shotton. Pumping Up: Digital Steroids and the Design Studio Scott Poole. A Philosophy of Engagement: Material, Process and Collective Action Alan Chandler. Material Matters Workshop: A Photographic Essay. Surface Structures in the Digital Age: Studies in Ferrocement Martin Bechthold. Out of Control: Architecture's Media, Cybernetics and Design Pablo Miranda Carranza. The Methodology of Construction: The Gentleman's Tailor and the Home Sewer Rachel Cruise. Re-Fabrications Richard Wilson. Between Birds' Nests and Manor Houses: Edwardian Cape Town and the Political Nature of Building Materials Nicholas Coetzer. Concrete as Conduit of Experience at the Brunswick, London Clare Melhuish. Unpleasant Matters Helen Stratford. Material Responsibility and the Work of Rural Studio Andrew Freear. Life Matters Making Place Doina Petrescu. The New and the Renewed Susannah Hagan
Biography
Katie Lloyd Thomas
