Indigenous Architecture
Climate change and sustainability are key considerations for architects when designing buildings in the 21st century. Since the industrial revolution, materials like steel, and more recently concrete, utilize the burning […]
Category Archives: Biomaterials
Urban Camouflage Rethought
Rethinking about the application and ability for camouflage’s potential impact on design and the building industry, I have started challenging some of my earlier thoughts. How do we start to […]
Holy Crypsis
Crypsis is the final study of camouflage I’m taking a closer look at. In biology crypsis is the ability for an organism to avoid observation or detection by other organisms. […]
Temperature Sensitive Materials
Materials that react to the immediate environment are popping up everywhere. In some fields this is not something new. Clothing design may be at the forefront of this idea with […]
wool in architecture
Wool is an all-natural substitute for the petrol-based products known to help insulate, redirect acoustics, and is even capable of providing structure to our built environment. Originally used to create […]
And Then There Was Teflon
A Brief History of Technology, Part 2 – Through the Teflon Looking Glass Lets step away from heavy-handed theory and digital technology for a minute and look at Teflon. As […]
SH*T bricks? Don’t be so fast to poo-pooh it…
Sh*t, also known as; poop, poo, crap, turd, dung, excrement, stool, manure, feces, dookie, or number-two—just to name a few— is now being used as the primary component in an […]
Camouflage This?
For my second attempt at understanding methods of camouflage I decided to study Casa Corallo by Paz Arquitectura. The project is located on a hillside forest in the Santa Rosalia […]
FLOCK [>from typical – innovative surface>]
FLOCK [>from typical – innovative surface>] Material/application: FLOCK Designer: Speziell Studio Sources: http://www.speziell.net/ Featured material: Flocks (plastic or natural fibers) – surface coating In 2003, Speziell Studios unveiled the great […]
Pop-up Cinema – The ‘Centipede’
A new way to watch a short film! The temporary urban intervention in Portugal was intended to bring the city together through viewing a series of short films created by […]
Homeostatic Facades
Do you ever have one of those moments when your only response is “holy shit”? That was my response when I first saw this movie of the homeostatic facade. The […]
Strange Materials: Collaborating with Technology
So recently, I’ve been asking the question, how can architecture engage and interact with us? With our ever-increasing dependence on computers and technology, can our physical surroundings actually seduce us into “looking […]
50 Shades of Camouflage
Camouflage is a set of methods or concealment that allow otherwise visible animals, military vehicles, or other objects to remain unnoticed by blending in with their environments by resembling something […]
Candyland for Vampires
In the popular game Candyland, Hasbro presents children with a wonderful world constructed entirely of Gumdrop Mountains, Lollipop Forests, and Molasses Swamps. This project theorizes a different type of material […]
Three Shades of Green
The Simma House, located in Egg, Austria and designed by the architect George Bechter, marries three approaches to sustainable design: the adaptive reuse of an existing structure, the nearly exclusive […]
Material Strategies 
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