1st Edition

Matter: Material Processes in Architectural Production

Edited By Gail Peter Borden, Michael Meredith Copyright 2012

    Beginning with material, this book revolves around physical material making and design decisions that emerge from material interaction.

    Combining essays from both practice and academia, this book presents some of the most significant projects and thoughts on materiality from the last decade. Beautifully illustrated with a great deal of technical information throughout, it shows work, technical technique and process, and positions it within a broader theoretical intention.

    By assembling a range of voices, here is a multifaceted portrait of material design today. Students and design professionals alike should find in this book an essential resource for understanding this increasingly important aspect of design.

    Introduction: Foreign Matter Gail Peter Borden and Michael Meredith  Part 1: Matter Conversed  Stan Allen, Neil Denari, Michael Maltzan, Nader Tehrani (Office dA)  Part 2: Matter Design  1. Strawberry Fields Jason Payne, Hirsuta  2. Voissoir Cloud Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott, IwamototScott  3. Light Frames Gail Peter Borden, Borden Partnership  4. Nebula Macula Florian Idenburg, IL-SO  5. Roof Tile Beach Oliver Hess and Jenna Didier, EMANATE  Part 3: Matter Processes  6. Reciprocal Media Eric Howeler and Meejin Yoon, Howleer/Yoon  7. Open David Benjamin  8. Porous Boundaries Jason Vollen and Dale Clifford, Binary  Part 4: Matter Precedent  9. Fixing the Drape: Textile Composite Walls David Hill and Laura Garofalo  10. Tumbling Units: Tectonics of Indeterminate Extension Kentaro Tsubaki  11. Monolithic Representations Andrew Atwood, ATWOOD  12. Materiality of the Infrathin Michael Carroll, atelier BUILD  13. Sheet Logics Heather Roberge  Part 5: Matter Detail  14. Real Detail - Detail Reality Axel Schmitzberger  15. Detailing Articulation Phillip Anzalone + Stephanie Bayard, aa64  16. Lightness John Enright + Margaret Griffin, GEA  17. Cumulative Processes and Intimate Understandings Dwayne Oyler + Jenny Wu, Oyler/Wu  18. Built to Change Blair Satterfield and Marc Swackhamer  Part 6: Matter Ecology  19. Matter is but Captured Energy Kiel Moe  20. A Brise-Soleil without a Building Hilary Sample, MOS  Part 7: Mattter Pedagogy  21. Material Resistance Jeremy Ficca  22. Digital Tracery: Fabricating Traits Lawrence Blough, Graftworks  23. Towards an Ecology of Making Santiago Perez  Part 8: Matter Sensations  24. Ana-Log Cabins Mireille Roddier, Keith Mitnick & Stewart Hicks, Mitnick Roddier Hicks  25. Composite Tectonics Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich, PATTERNS  26. Alternative Forms of Malleability Rhett Russo, OrangeHorse  27. The Art of Contemporary Tracery Tom Wiscombe, EMERGENT  Part 9: Matter Surface  28. Diachronic Growth Thom Faulders, Faulders Studio  30. Bodies in Formation Andrew Kudless, Matsys

    Biography

    Gail Peter Borden is principal of the Borden Partnership and an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California. His numerous awards and publications include the Architecture League of New York Young Architects Prize; 2011 AIA Young Architect Award; an artist-in-residence at the Chinati Foundation, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the MacDowell Colony; a Graham Foundation Grant; and the Borchard Fellowship.

    Michael Meredith is a principal in the architecture office MOS and an Associate Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His writing has appeared in Artforum, Perspecta, LOG, Praxis, Domus, and Harvard Design Magazine, along with many others. The work of MOS has been widely published and received numerous awards. In 2009, MOS was awarded the PS1/MoMA Summer Pavilion.

    "During the past decade a shift occurred that meant that students were often building things rather than modeling them. The first generation that took on that role have set up practices that retroactively begin to re-define education. Michael Meredith and Gail Borden have assembled many of this generation's work and give coherence to this still emerging context. This is work on material qualities and at times capabilities but perhaps more accurately it reveals a still nascent but deeply important new comfort with fabrication, construction and the complexity of material as it is embedded within a range of demands from finance to structural performance."

    Michael Bell, Columbia University, USA

    "Matter: Material Processes in Architectural Production is likely to find its way onto many desks in architecture schools; expansive and well organized, Meredith and Borden have provided a critical structure that gives the book depth that other surveys cannot manage. The compilation of case studies includes iterations and outtakes that demonstrate the intensity of the research in material theory. But the book is not simply a glimpse at what the "next generation" has been up to. The real value of Matter—the reason why the rest of us should own a copy—is that it documents the extent which digital practice is influencing mainstream practice and maps a future in which architects regain control over the process of building."

    Kevin Daly, Daly Genik Architects, USA