The Great Metal Tube in the Sky
Composite Bird My window seat next to the wing of the Boeing 777 that would carry me across the Arctic Sea to China was anything but desired. As soon as […]
Tag Archives: Materials
NINGBO TENGTOU PAVILION [Social_Responsive_Vernacular]
Project: Ningbo Tengtou Pavillion, Shanghai, China, 2010 Architect/Designer: Amateur Architecture Studio, Wang Shu, Principal Sources: http://www.worldarchitects.com/en/amateur Featured material: Reused/Repurpose brick+tiles Responding to current China’s thirst for impatient¹ urbanization, Architect Wang […]
The Fascination with Corrugation
Cardboard is perhaps the most vernacular engineered material today. Almost everyone has had interaction with cardboard and most have experimented in their own construction using cardboard. Remember that toy you […]
Wt Hpnd 2 Vwls?
Architecture, Materials and The Battle of Speed and Quality Yeah, so where have all the vowels gone? What happened to them? We find ourselves in a world where words are […]
Sustainability Icon in a Sea of Suburbia
I call Omaha, Nebraska home. A mid-sized city in what many Americans call the “fly over” portion of the country, the Midwest. Omaha is unique in that Nebraska law allows […]
Architecture Sells
When seeing the Vizio All-In-One PC commercial recently, I was intrigued by the visual argument being presented. Most commercials attempting to sell technology present you with a magical (and in […]
RTP/RPD Studios [concrete_dematerialized=glass]
RTP/RPD Studios [concrete_dematerialized=glass] Project: R.T.P. / R.P.D. Studios, Lisbon Architect/Designer: Frederico Valsassina Arquitectos Sources: http://www.fvarq.com/ Featured material: Glass (printed glass facade) The RTP/RDP Studios offers a remarkable example of concrete […]
A Brief History of Technology, Part 1
Information and Material Let’s take a few steps back for a minute and look at the history of technology. But first, when you think of what technology is, what comes […]
The House of Yesterday – Today!
Monsanto’s House of the Future was surely an aspirational work of architecture. Its formal properties, both in and out, were truly “plastic”: soft edges, sculpted interiors, and a bold authenticity […]
ELECTRODYNAMIC FRAGMENTATION [W/_a purpose: CONCRETE]
ELECTRODYNAMIC FRAGMENTATION [W/_a purpose: CONCRETE] Project: Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP – Viable concrete recycling Scientist: Dr. Volker Thome Source: http://www.ibp.fraunhofer.de/en/ Featured material: CONCRETE [aggregate, cement, chemical admixtures, and […]
Visual Layers and Visual Structures
The German Chinese Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo Shanghai (by Markus Heinsdorff in collaboration with MUDI) brings together a wide spectrum of materials which evoke age old traditions mixed […]
From Skate-park to Siding: Composite Paper Offers a Sustainable Alternative
In the push towards sustainability many companies turn towards new and recycled materials. One such company offers a composite material made from 50 percent post-consumer recycled paper (100%) and 50 […]
Bimetals in Architecture: Learning from Materials
Bimetallic strips are made up of two strips with of different metals joined together in length. Each metal has a different expansion rate and when the two metals together (as […]
X.LEYKOS – Wood + Light
Imagine a filtered glow reminiscent of the sun penetrating through the trees when walking through the woods. This glow is unique; natural, warm, filtered, and captivating. There is nothing that […]
Material Strategies 
You must be logged in to post a comment.