Conference - Strange Material Transformations

5:30 pm - Jean Duminy Amphitheatre -

In the Age of Digital Craft -

As technology enables the transformation of natural materials such as timber and stone to give them new properties, what forms should architects give those new materials? This question has intrigued builders, designers and theoreticians since Vitruvius. It reemerged in the^19th century and gained a new dimension with the theories of "defamiliarization" or "making strange" in literature and in art since the 1910s. Postmodern architects in the 1980s were equally concerned with making old forms strange, while with the advent of digital design and fabrications it appeared that all we ever knew about the fit between form and material has been superseded. This lecture contextualizes the creative potential of current uses of transformed materials in light of historic and contemporary built works and texts.

Viewing link HERE

As part of the "Master Class" project workshop - S06 exploratory semester
Teacher: Tricia Meehan

© Ariel Genadt 2017