Materiability E-Book

Manuel Kretzer

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 132

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Materiability is design by making, an understanding of actively learning from and about the world by physically engaging in it. The immediate connection between matter and human senses, such as touch, smell, sound or visuals, forms the basis for bodily explorations, engagements, and experiences. Materiability is a call to take action, to cease accepting the status-quo as given but instead speculate and dream about possible alternatives. It is about sharing these dreams with others, about communication, exchange, collaboration and open, unrestricted access to information. Materiability is the belief in a future that is shaped by our common efforts. It is about inspiration, ideas and visions. About understanding challenges not as problems that need to be solved but as opportunities from which new can emerge. Materiability is a playground for probing tomorrow.

Leseprobe

Materiability is design by making; an understanding of actively learning from and about the world by physically engaging in it. The immediate connection between matter and human senses, such as touch, smell, sound or visuals, forms the basis for bodily explorations, engagements, and experiences. Materiability is a call to take action, to cease accepting the status-quo as given but instead speculate and dream about possible alternatives. It is about sharing these dreams with others, about communication, exchange, collaboration and open, unrestricted access to information. Materiability is the belief in a future that is shaped by our common efforts. It is about inspiration, ideas and visions. About understanding challenges not as problems that need to be solved but as opportunities from which new can emerge. Materiability is a playground for probing tomorrow.

The present publication provides an overview of over a decade of material research and education in architecture and design. The selected projects originate from different contexts and backgrounds but all share a common interest in progressive material exploration and advanced design and fabrication methods.

Contents

TOMORROWLAND

SPIROPLASM

ARAGON

MICROBIAL LEATHER

THE PANDEMIC COOKBOOK

3D PRINTING BIOPLASTICS

(MERITOCRACY) SPEAKING BODIES

WASTE WORTH WATING

SENSEO4NEO

MATERIABILITY RESEARCH LAB

QUANTIFY ME

BERLIN HYPERLOOP STATION

DIGITAL & EXPERIMENT

ADAPTIVE CITY CAR

BIOTOPE GENERATIVE SYSTEM

FOUND UTOPIA

BIOPLASTIC ROBOTIC MATERIALIZATION

MATERIAL ALS EXPERIMENT

THE DILETTANTE SCIENTIST DESIGNER WORKSHOP

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

ANIMA

DER CHARAKTER DER MATERIALIEN

RIBOFUNK

SUSTAINALIZE ME

TOMORROWLANDS

FOAMS

CONCEPT BREATHE

SYNTHETIC ECOLOGIES

INVERTED MORPHOLOGIES

SKIN2

SPACE DYNAMICS

LUMINOUS TEXTILES

DYNAMICS IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS

RESINANCE 2.0

RESINANCE

TONG ZI DAN

SOFT MOTION AND LIQUIDS

ANIMATED TEXTILES

BIOPLASTICS FORM FINDING WORKSHOP

PHOTOTROPIA

ACTUATED MATTER

MATERIAL ANIMATION

SHAPESHIFT

CREDITS

Science and technology multiply around us.

To increasing an they dictate extent the languages in which we speak and we use think. Either languages, those or we remain mute.

James Graham Ballard-

Tomorrowland

CHANGE

Android, Koshinuke, 2019

In 1978 the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published an essay entitled ‘My own View’, within which he stated:

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. […] This in turn means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman, must take on a sciencefictional way of thinking._1

This kind of change, which Asimov already described some forty years ago becomes ever more obvious today. We live in a time where technology is multiplying around us at an ever increasing pace. If we are to believe the Director of Engineering at Google Ray Kurzweil, who has analyzed the growth rate of various technological systems, then by 2045 this development will lead to a certain state of Singularity, a point where progress will be so fast that it exceeds our ability to comprehend it implying an infinite rate of change happening momentarily._2 Once this moment has been surpassed mankind will reach a state of transhumanism, where humans will merge with intelligent machines and through this surmount the biological restraints of its physical and psychological constitution.

A similar kind of growth can also be observed demographically. Since the 1960s the world population has more than doubled, growing from 3 to about 7.5 billion today, and according to a recent UN study is expected to rise to roughly 10 billion by 2050;_3 and 70% of all those people are going to be living in large megacities._4

At the same time the average global life expectancy has in the last 100 years increased from 46 years of age in 1910 to 70 in 2014 and is supposed to exceed 76 by mid century._5

Mexico City, Eneas De Troya, 2016

By 2050 we will also need 80% more energy than today,_6 consume up to 90% more food,_7 have more trash in the ocean than fish,_8 almost every vehicle on the planet will be autonomous and self-driving, there will be 200 million worldwide climate refugees,_9 and apparently human-robot or human-computer relationships could have become common. Obviously, such tendencies not only have an impact on ourselves and our behavior as a species but also on our planet’s ecological system, its biodiversity, climate and atmosphere. An impact that is actually so severe and irreversible that scientists have proposed to constitute a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene - the age of humans.

Shipwreck, Gerhard Lipold, 2012

Times Square, Roberto Lee Cortes, 2019

The Anthropocene is a period, beginning in the 1950s with atomic bomb testing, throughout which the face of earth has been largely defined by human activity. However the Anthropocene is not only a time of man-made disruption, it is also - at least more recently - a moment of awakening, of blinking self-awareness in which we are becoming conscious of ourselves as a planetary force. We’re not only driving global warming and ecological destruction, we know that we are.

Ironically, it is only by despoiling the planet that we have understood just how much a part of it we are. But what to do when everything one does becomes an environmental question? When every time we start the engine of our car, every time we pick up a plastic bag in the supermarket, every time we eat a burger at McDonald’s, we change the world?

This shared impact, resulting from a multitude of minor yet largely unsustainable behaviors as a global species, means that if we keep going like this the human race will require almost a second planet, or to put it differently will have used up all the world’s annual resources by mid-August._10

ADAPT

So, the question we should be asking is not whether climate change or any other of these “things” are real, nor when they will happen, since it doesn’t really make a difference if it’s in five or ten or fifty years. The question would be “What is the most human and sustainable way to adapt?” or as Norbert Wiener put it in 1954:

We are the slaves of our technical improvement and we can no more return a New Hampshire farm to the self-contained state in which it was maintained in 1800. [...] We have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves in order to exist in this new environment. We can no longer live in the old one._11

Unfortunately when facing unprecedented challenges, oftentimes we tend to do the exact opposite to Wiener’s suggestion. Instead of adapting, changing, evolving and trying to understand the cause and reason of these events, we block their symptoms through a viscous fight for preservation. We build walls against rising sea levels, walls to keep those in need away from those who have, walls as the encapsulating response to a growingly globalized world.

Glacier, Joshua Woroniecki, 2014

Hydrophobic Droplets, Adrian Malec, 2017

Maybe it is time to reconsider our attitude; maybe it is time to stop fighting change, stop mourning after the good old days and instead embracing it as something from which the new can emerge. And in that context, of transformation and mutation, paired with a good portion of naiveté and curiosity at what the future might behold, may create environments and experiences that can adapt, grow, evolve and include rather than exclude.

Returning to the acceleration in technological progress there lies amazing potential in developing solutions based on adaptive materials, solutions which have not only one single state or purpose but which behave multidimensionally. Such materials can change their shape, change their color, produce light or electricity, store heat or water, or even adjust their surface texture. However, despite a growing interest in the performative aspects of this kind of materiality most design scenarios are still rather traditional and fall far from exhibiting any of the radical opportunities that these materials offer, which is due to a number of reasons:

Firstly, many new materials are still technologically immature and often not developed with respect to design or architectural applications. Even when they are available as finished products, they have rather narrow properties since they are always designed for a very specific purpose limiting their scalability and durability.

Secondly, there is a big gap between the artistic disciplines and scientific research. The amount of information on new material developments that is comprehensible without having expert knowledge or insights is very limited and often scientifically mystified.

And lastly - and this is something that we as designers have to address - there is a lack in ideologically distinguishing smart materials from traditional ones. The defining dynamic properties are either constrained by forcing them onto existing structures and systems, or even neglected by standardizing and categorizing them to make them comparable to non-active materials and include them in existing databases and catalogs.

In an attempt to overcome these issues materiability was initiated in 2012 - an online platform, an educational framework and open materials database that provides in-depth access to emerging material developments. From this endeavor the Materiability Research Group with associated Materiability Research Lab (page →) was founded in Dessau at the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in 2019, right next to the historical Bauhaus building by Walter Gropius. The group’s work focuses on exploring novel material fabrication in unison with digital design and fabrication processes. A particular emphasis is on adaptive or smart technologies as well as biological materials and their impact on our future environment.

Materiability Team 2021, Sebastian Steffes, Paulina Schröder, HS Anhalt, 2021

PLAY

Dynamics in Extreme Environments, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Manuel Kretzer, 2015

The core idea behind this approach, with a strong focus on playful experimentation and intuition, is based on a philosophy of design by making, which understands design as a dynamic process and not as the result of a predetermined idea. Or as Kurt Schwitters described it in 1924:

Every form is the frozen instantaneous picture of a process. Thus a work is a stopping-place on the road of becoming and not the fixed goal. We acknowledge works which contain a system within themselves, a system which has not been evolved before the work started but has evolved in the course of it._12

This concept is mediated through explorative and playful workshops and courses, where the participants are encouraged to physically experience the functionality of materials, comprehend their working principles and composition and understand the relationship between fabrication procedures and materials’ performance.

A relatively early example that emerged from this idea is Phototropia (page →), which was realized at the Chair for CAAD, ETH Zürich in 2011. The key topic of this course was “autonomy”, not only in the sense that the designer becomes independent from commercially available and industrially (pre)fabricated materials but also as a method to combine all the applied materials into a self-sufficient system. The materials that were used had in common that they were thin, flexible and lightweight and could be produced following a set of rather simple instructions. Throughout the course electro-active polymers, which are thin-film membranes that can change their size or shape in response to a strong electrical field, electroluminescent displays, which emit a cold, perfectly homogeneous light in any color across their surface, and dye-sensitized solar cells, a type of solar cell that uses an organic dye to convert sunlight into electricity, were made. All these components were held together by a structural system made of custom bioplastic struts

Another more applied study is an ongoing collaboration with the German car manufacturer AUDI, investigating into the future of mobility, particularly the transition between today’s and tomorrow’s modes of transportation. Automotive mobility of the present is noisy, dangerous, dirty, stressful and relatively expensive but yet a lot of fun since it provides a feeling of freedom and independence. The mobility of the future is imagined to be autonomous, clean, connected and shared, yet huge anxiety persists of losing control to an artificial system and a lack of personal experience. The task thus is to merge the best of both worlds and develop a driving experience which becomes an emotional journey by allowing the users to identify themselves with their vehicle.

Phototropia, Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design, ETH Zürich, Manuel Kretzer, 2011

Concept Breathe, Braunschweig University of Arts and AUDI, Maximilian Dauscha, 2017

The first project that was realized in this context was Concept Breathe (page →) in 2017. The point of departure here was to rethink the notion of the car seat and imagine that - driven by an increasing demand for customization and individualization - cars would become more than mere means of transportation but instead exhibit aspects of living creatures to become friends or companions. Since the goal was to diverge from classical shapes, a strong focus was on employing computational methods for form finding in combination with digital fabrication techniques. The final structure was 3D printed in 1:1 by Berlin based company BigRep; a process that took almost ten days to complete. In addition to the 3D printed structure the seat contains 38 bespoke, active components that are incorporated into its surface to dynamically adjust its visual and haptic properties. And finally, a number of customized cushions from a high-performance fabric were added in five separate areas to guarantee the necessary comfort and stability.

Alcyon, Dessau Department of Design and AUDI, Martin Naumann, Luise Oppelt, Toni Pasternak, Anian Stoib, 2018

Anima (page →) was the second iteration of this collaboration and builds thematically upon experience from the previous project, this time with a focus on the middle console. 17 students worked in four groups to develop their own scenario and design approach, whilst addressing functional aspects (e.g. tray or cup holder options), formal expressions (using parametric/ generative processes), technological production (applying digital fabrication techniques), sustainability (e.g. materiality, recycling, etc.), interaction with and adaptation of the system and embedding the object into a larger narrative context.

Alcyon, derived from the Latin word alcyoneum (coral), proposes a bio inspired central console produced by 3D printing, using a biodegradable filament made from algae. The structure is further planted with reindeer lichen - an organism consisting of algae and fungi, living in symbiosis without the need for human intervention. Lichen are used as bio-indicators for habitable air quality, while the algae provides oxygen through photosynthesis, impacting and improving the indoor climate. Okura focuses on the identification of the driver with the vehicle to compensate for loss of control, alienation and a lack of security. It’s interactive surface, consisting of dynamic scales, informs, adapts and reacts through behavioral patterns that translate (e)motions into the interior of the vehicle, and thus establish trust in autonomous driving and artificial intelligence. Moreover, the surface can change its color from black to white in response to a change in temperature, which can improve the interior climate.

The latest project of this series is the Adaptive City Car (page →). Again, the premise was to design something that not only looks and feels different but also reaches the limits of what is doable in terms of design and fabrication. Starting from an intense ideation workshop four key demands from a user’s perspective were extracted: Design for “Protest”, “Space”, “Individuality”, and “Identification”. These demands led to four corresponding design attributes. First the seating position was shifted so one would focus less on traffic but on the environment. Second large smart glass windows that can dynamically change their transparency provide the necessary privacy.

Integrated LED lights and speakers mark the third part to signal different states of the car and interact with the driver. Finally cork elements, populated with moss, improve both the interior air quality but also bring aspects of nature back into the cities. The car is made from 92 bespoke components, which were each robotically milled, coated, sanded, painted and finally glued together before the adaptive elements like lights, windows, sound and sensors were integrated.

Adaptive City Car, Dessau Department of Design and Dessau International Architecture Graduate School with AUDI, Paulina Schröder, 2019

CREATE

Reflecting upon the uncertain future and tremendous challenges we are facing the Swedish physician Hans Rosling says:

Bioplastic Robotic Materialization, Dessau Department of Design and Dessau Institute of Architecture, Luise Oppelt, 2018