Architecture schools typically separate the required Materials and Methods course and the design studio, creating the impression that the two have little or nothing to do with each other. This misconception goes well beyond the academic realm, as the erroneous distinction between the “what” and the “how” of architecture is seen all too frequently in professional practice. Materials are often chosen at the end of the design process or even during the generation of construction documents for a building design, as if they are a mere afterthought, a color of paint applied to the building after the design has been formulated. Whether in the classroom or in practice, to consider design without regard to material can only result in a less successful building project.

The need exists to reintegrate the components of architectural education. The rise of design/build programs such as the Rural Studio at Auburn University, Studio 804 at the University of Kansas, and the Basic Initiative Program at the University of Washington have demonstrated the effectiveness of a holistic learning pedagogy that combines design, materials, construction methods, programming, and even community service. Looking abroad, the ETSAM in Madrid has a program in which students go to Central America, South America, or Africa to build houses for those in need. The Bartlett School and Oxford Brooks University in the United Kingdom also offer similar programs. All of these programs teach a student decision-making skills and the understanding that what they design is critical to a project’s success. Design/build students learn immediately that their choice of materials can be a powerful and didactic tool to this end.

This argument for an education that reconnects these subjects is effectively made by Ernest Boyer and Lee Mitgang in Building Community: A New Future for Architecture Education and Practice. They present seven essential goals for the education of an architect based on their research of accredited programs. One goal, “a connected curriculum,” criticizes the separation of design from other, more technical coursework. To effectively teach young designers the practical and technical as well as the theoretical and artistic, these must be learned hand in hand.

This book offers just such an alternative by showcasing projects that marry an architect’s design intention with the qualities of a material, a synthesis called materiality. Chosen to form a cohesive approach, fifty-eight case studies presented here inspire, encourage, and push the use of materials in the design process.

That such a marriage between material and design is only now being made explicit is not surprising. Materials have been used to express statements for years, but it is only recently in our history that how we use them—not to mention the onset of an entirely new palette of material options—has begun to advance and revolutionize architecture. Prior to the twentieth century, materiality spoke more to place, to locale, and in a way was more purely definitive as to what a building should look like: architects tended to use materials that were available and plentiful in their location and thus uniquely representative of that place, such as the indigenous woods used for the saltboxes and meeting houses of New England in the 1700s, or Thomas Jefferson’s use of the red clay of Virginia to make the distinctive bricks that defined his buildings in the early 1800s. In the northeastern United States in the 1870s and ’80s, Henry Hobson Richardson used stone to convey an idea of monumentality and permanence.

In Europe, bold statements of materiality were being made by the mid-nineteenth century. Henri Labrouste used iron, a material new to large public buildings, in his Bibliotech Ste. Genevieve in Paris (1850). The use of iron at that time was a proclamation that this was a building of high technology. Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, an exposition hall in London built just one year later, was a modular cast iron and glass building that used its materials to symbolize industrial, technological, and economic superiority. The large areas of glass and cast iron were an expression of materials and intention and were a precursor to the glass curtain wall.

The twentieth century saw the rapid development of these early seeds of materials and design intentions integrating together as one. The early purveyors of modernism used materiality in this way to help support their ideals. Auguste Perret began using reinforced concrete throughout France in the early 1900s as a representation of a new architectural style, not just a new material to replace stone. He designed a garage for Renault in 1905 and the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in 1913, both in Paris, as well as many other public and industrial buildings in France. Erick Gunnar Asplund’s Stockholm Library (1918) also exemplified a new monolithic and clean-lined look of concrete. In the United States, Frank Lloyd Wright used unprecedented poured-in-place concrete for the unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois (1906), as well as for the more notorious Fallingwater in Bear Run, Pennsylvania (1934). Le Corbusier, a pupil of Perret’s, used concrete to achieve the monolithic and sculptural qualities he strove for at a time when concrete was not considered a common building material. Through his villas and religious and civic buildings erected in America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, he reached a new level of sculptural architecture utilizing the properties of this single material, when no other would have achieved the desired effect. Likewise, Mies van der Rohe was able to push the use of glass and steel to provide a level of purity in construction and a minimalist quality in space. As modernism was refined, the use of materiality continued to support the design intentions of those willing to look at materials in novel ways. One can think of Pierre Chareau’s use of glass at Maison de Verre (1932), or more generally of Alvar Aalto’s love of wood or Eero Saarinen’s obsession with concrete.

Postmodernists of the 1980s promoted an alternative approach to materiality: they chose to deny it as a part of architecture. The use of faux veneers and imitation materials expressed a style that showed little regard for an ethic of truth to material. As these materials flooded the construction market, the distinction between what is real and what is false became harder than ever to identify. Architecture’s approach to materiality had spun 180 degrees since that of the early modernists.

Today, materiality is an exciting and quickly expanding concept in the construction process. Global corporations like DuPont and Weyerhauser are continually generating new materials and new uses for existing materials. Industries that once serviced a small segment of products are now engaged in much more in-depth research and development of new materials that are more effective, more efficient, and more environmentally sensitive. Once merely a tool for architects and largely confined to the realm of engineering, materiality has now become an instrumental methodology for a clear and bold design statement.

The wealth of innovations in this realm has made materials an enormous field of study in itself. The use of plastics, for instance, has exploded with every technological advance, while the more traditional materials have stayed in demand as well. The wide range of colors and sizes of concrete block, for example, offers an exponential increase in selection. “Green” materials— those that are sustainable and sensitive to our environment—have also become mainstream. In some ways it is almost impossible to write a comprehensive book on materials today with the ever-changing and ever-growing advancements taking place across the board. It is almost impossible to keep pace with the latest and newest types of materials being introduced to the construction field.

Materials have also entered into a new realm of distinction with this onset of advancement in engineering and technology. We are at a point in history when technology allows for the “design” of specific materials to fit the specific needs of a building. Frank Gehry’s signature metal panels are a great example: each is individually engineered for its precise position in the building. Such technology has introduced a period of new expressionism in the glory of materials and their qualities. Materiality has now become a mature philosophy in the field of architecture: How are materials expressed in a building—are they veneer or structural, modern or vernacular? What kind of materials are acceptable? How does the structural material relate to the enclosure materials, or are they same?

This book is organized to serve as a basic reference and examination of five materials that have pushed this philosophy—glass, concrete, wood, metal, and plastic. These materials, unlike traditional masonry, have properties that are still being discovered and exploited in new ways. Each chapter begins with a basic material primer, a brief history, design considerations, and a summary of the various types and/or production methods. The content has been selected to give the reader a basic understanding of the material.

These introductions are followed by case study projects offering examples of some of the best and most inspired uses made by architects from around the world in the past few years. The case studies have been selected by a survey of contemporary practices for whom design intention and materials have been successfully joined. The scale of the projects is small to moderate, allowing a focus and clarity of expression to yield an understanding of the building in its entirety and as a didactic prototype for the young designer.

These architects love materials and are not concerned about deviating from the norm. There are examples of pushing a material to new and experimental heights, such as the Aluminum Forest by Micha Haas, a building made almost completely of aluminum. There are examples of a mundane material being used in a new or different way, such as the Springtecture H project by Shudei Endo, where corrugated metal is curved and looped to create spaces. There are the more modest projects where experimentation meant creativity, such as the Rural Studio’s Masons Bend Chapel, which used car windshields as glazing. These projects make an expression not only with the types of materials used but also in how they are put together. The construction detail drawings for all of these projects have been highlighted because this is where we learn most about the designers’ thought processes in putting their buildings together as well as their unique philosophies regarding materials. This is where we begin to understand how a material is connected, how it needs to be treated, and how it relates to the other materials in the building.

When a material is used in new and unexpected ways, or where its characteristics are presented in an unconventional condition, the level of design is raised. ARO’s use of glass in its SOHO loft is mesmerizing, as it is utilized structurally, counterintuitive to what we are accustomed to seeing but furthering the design’s intention toward open space; the properties of glass were used in a creative manner in order to achieve a design solution. The result is an engaging and innovative stair that appears to float in space. Likewise the use of pre-cast concrete in the Retirement Home built in Basel, Switzerland, by Steinmann & Schmid Architekten exemplifies the way in which thoughtful design and a proficient understanding of a material creates a practical and beautiful building. O’Connor + Houle Architecture uses a white polycarbonate to skin their 50 Argo Street house to give the owners varying levels of translucency and privacy. Elsewhere, Despang Architekten is always sensitive to the synthesis of materials and design, such as their use of a prefabricated structural wood system designed for the Paul Moor School in Garbsen, Germany. Materials for Design aims to inspire designers to think of materials as a palette from which to imagine how an idea or concept can be crystallized and realized with the use of a material. This book is dedicated to all of us who love materials and to all of us who love to design. The two belong together.

Materials for Design (Paperback)
by Victoria Ballard Bell (Author), Patrick Rand (Author)
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