Something Borrowed: Defining an Emerging Covenant between Architecture and Materials

Image: Firefly, a sustainable woodland shelter at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education [photo by Nami Yamamoto]

Lecture by Rashida Ng.

When: 6.16.09 6:30-8Pm.

Where: Center for Architecture 1218 Arch st. Philadelphia, Pa.

“We are standing at the threshold of the next generation of buildings: buildings… which are extremely ecological in their behavior through the intelligent use of functionally adaptive materials, products, and constructions…”

As affirmed in the quote above by Alex Ritter, emerging material technologies promise a future architecture typified by adaptive phenomenological and performative behaviors. Modern advancements in material science have introduced an innumerable range of new materials that will continue to redefine the built environment. This lecture will interrogate the shifting relationship between architecture and materials as instigated by these material science advancements. Beyond a synopsis of new materials and technologies, it will scrutinize the possibilities that are proposed by the importation of material developments from disparate disciplines, such as cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, and defense. What opportunities are made possible through the re-appropriation of material resources borrowed from another context? Of equal importance, what inadvertent consequences may arise from the transfer of these material technologies?

As designers, we are inspired by the high-performance characteristics, responsive behaviors, and ecological sophistication of the numerous nascent materials currently entering the global marketplace. Examples of such materials will be presented with the aim of revealing the potential for research-based design and material innovation within architecture.

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Alex Ritter, Smart Materials in Architecture, Interior Architecture and Design, (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2007), preface.

Rashida Ng holds a Masters of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Rashida's research, teaching and professional work are based in material studies and innovations as related to architecture. She is the Founder of RNG design, and the co-founder and president of SEAM-Lab a non-profit collaborative think tank dedicated to research and dissemination of design-based knowledge focused on materiality within the built environment. She is currently a professor at Temple University, Tyler School of Art, Architecture program. Her studio's are conducted with a focus on emerging materials and system innovations. In collaboration with Nami Yamamoto, Max Lent, and Greg Charnock, Rashida has recently completed the construction of FireFly, the groups entry into the Gimme Shelter competition conducted by the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. FireFly was one of 6 structures to be constructed. Currently she is working on "ReD", a funded research project to develop a prototype of a responsive daylighting panel integrating phase change material.

Some of her achievements:

-Pennsylvania Green Building Alliance Product Innovation Grant for “ReD: a Responsive Daylighting Panel Integrating Phase Change Material,” 2008.

-AIA Medal, First Prize, University of Pennsylvania, 2001.

Publications

-KieranTimberlake: refabricating ARCHITECTURE, ARCC / EAAE 2006 International Conference Proceedings, 2007.

Exhibitions:

-Curator of Fused, Artemide Showroom, Philadelphia, PA, April 28 – May 2, 2008.
-Co-curator, with Sneha Patel and Jack Fanning of Reality of the Unbuilt, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, November 2007.

For more information visit:

http://www.temple.edu/architecture

http://www.schuylkillcenter.org/