Exhibition and Panel: From Field to Form: Making with Earth

Featuring Lisa Morey, engineer and architectural designer who owns and operates Colorado Earth; Ronald Rael, the Eva Li Memorial Chair in Architecture at the University of California Berkeley and chair of Berkeley’s Department of Art Practice; Tommy Schaperkotter, adjunct assistant professor in the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at Cooper Union and teacher at Columbia University GSAPP; and Lynnette Widder, associate professor of practice in sustainability management at Columbia University.

Exhibition

To address the potential of earthen materials, students from Columbia GSAPP, in collaboration with the Natural Materials Lab, have been exploring in-depth research on natural materials.

Engaging with theories and hands-on experiences, students developed a range of earth-based mixtures and tested their fabrication mechanisms, including digital 3D printing, mechanical pressing, and manual craft. Students drew inspiration from traditional techniques such as adobe rammed earth, cob, clay plasters, and straw bale construction, to speculate the futures of earth materialities. The class studied the performance and environmental benefits of each speculative project, while making a sensitive choice of materials, technical details, and fabrication processes.

To view the exhibition on May 1 and May 3 between 12pm and 2pm, please register here.

Talk at 1014

At the opening event, we invite design practitioners, educators, policy advocates, and material scientists to discuss and debate the future possibilities of earthen materials.

The panel event, curated and moderated by Lola Ben-Alon from the Natural Materials Lab, will aim to question the challenges and possibilities of raw earth materials that is free from chemically processed or otherwise calcined additives such as cement. This panel discussion will focus on natural earth- and fiber-based building materials, their manual and digital fabrication, life cycle, supply chains, and advantages and disadvantages for construction, renovation and insulation.

Lola Ben-Alon is an Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP, where she directs the Natural Materials Lab and the Building Technology curriculum. She specializes in earth- and bio-based building materials, their life cycle, supply chains, fabrication techniques, and policy. Ben-Alon received her Ph.D. from the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. Her work has been exhibited at the Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and published in Building and Environment, Journal of Green Building, and Automation in Construction.

Lisa Morey is an engineer and architectural designer who owns and operates Colorado Earth, a company that produces adobe and earth blocks. She is the author of Adobe Homes for all Climates and an advocate for natural building materials.

Ronald Rael is a designer, activist, architect, and author whose research interests connect indigenous and traditional material practices to contemporary technologies and issues. He is the Eva Li Memorial Chair in Architecture at the University of California Berkeley and chair of Berkeley’s Department of Art Practice. He directs the printFARM Laboratory (print Facility for Architecture, Research and Materials) and is the author of Earth Architecture, a history of building with earth in the modern era.

Tommy Schaperkotter is an architect, builder, and educator devoted to transdisciplinary exploration of material cultures, construction ecologies, and interdependencies between built and non-built environments. He is an adjunct assistant professor in the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at Cooper Union and he also teaches at Columbia University GSAPP.

Lynnette Widder is an architect, architectural historian, and educator whose work currently focuses on low-carbon renovations of modernist buildings and a grant from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop textile-reinforced raw-earth structures for the Sahel region. She is an associate professor of practice in sustainability management at Columbia University.

Co-hosted by 1014, Columbia GSAPP Natural Materials Lab, and The Architectural League of New York.

With support from German Center for Research and Innovation (DWIH) New York.

VENUE ACCESSIBILITY

Unfortunately, 1014 Fifth Avenue is in the process of being refurbished, and is not fully accessible in its current state. We apologize to our guests and kindly ask you to contact j.stubbs@1014.nyc if you need further information or assistance. We will do our best to enable everyone to join us.

More Information:

• The Natural Materials Lab

• The Architectural League of New York