Transstudio

Blaine Brownell will give a lecture about emergent material technologies at The College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University in Shanghai at 6:30 pm on Monday, May 24, 2010. The talk will be followed by a discussion with architecture students about potential material applications in China.

This month’s A+U journal adopts the theme of “Materials / Treatments” in the study of international contemporary architecture and design. Sauerbruch Hutton, Foreign Office Architects, Asymptote, Eduardo Souto de Moura, David Chipperfield, and Chuck Hoberman are included in the list of creative practices currently conducting robust experiments in material applications. The essay “Testing Ground: Emergent Green Materials and Architectural Effects” introduces the volume, outlining the most significant trajectories of recent material innovations.

According to A+U, “Ceramic, glass, concrete and metals are ordinary materials architects are familiar with. Through new treatments and interpretation, these ordinary materials can be transformed by technology resulting in new architectural effects.

This week marks the publication of Transmaterial 3: A Catalog of Materials that Redefine our Physical Environment, by Princeton Architectural Press. Since the 2006 publication of the best-selling first volume, the Transmaterial series has aimed to inspire architects and designers looking to transform the structure, spaces, and surfaces of their projects with the latest high-tech and environmentally friendly products. The third volume in the critically acclaimed series presents over two hundred emergent materials, products, and systems that have significant potential to transform the constructed world.

Transmaterial 3 provides a broad synopsis of the state of technological advances in materials today with a special emphasis on new developments in the field of biopolymers and various agriculturally derived products;

Feather Circuit Board, the University of Delaware

The new year often brings a chance to reflect, prompting us to make lists about past milestones. However, since I am usually more interested in what the future holds, I would like to offer my own list about emerging trends in materials. The following list appears on the Architect website, featuring five of the most significant material directions to watch in the next five years, including selections from my upcoming book Transmaterial 3.

PET Wall, Transstudio

Light is essential to the realization of architecture, yet in the process of design and construction it is commonly an afterthought. Not only is the source of light important for the quality of illumination within a space, but also the materials used to capture, filter, and redirect the light. An installation at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning showcases a marriage between light and assemblage art.

One decade ago, Japan-based architecture magazine SD published a special issue on new materials entitled “Alluring Materiality.” For its ten-year anniversary, the original editorial team reconvened to produce another issue reflecting upon recent material progress, and invited Blaine Brownell to be a co-editor. The anniversary issue was recently published by Kajima Institute Publishing Co.

The editorial board for the special issue includes:
Hiroshi Ota (architect: Institute of Industrial Science, Univ. of Tokyo)
Makoto Yokomizo (architect: aat / Tokyo National University of Fine Arts)
Kotaro Imai (architect: Institute of Industrial Science, Univ. of Tokyo)
Masahi Sogabe (architect: Mikan / Kanagawa University)
Hiroshi Marubashi (architect: Amaterrace)

Blaine Brownell lectured in the 2009-2010 Design Matters lecture series at the University of Illinois. The program concerns the synergistic interrelationships between design, engineering, technology, and business in the creation of innovative and successful products, services and experiences.

Transstudio’s Bridge Tower proposal was featured in the September/October 2009 issue of Fabric Architecture magazine. The project proposes an urban-scaled “cloak” comprised of intelligent thermal skins that optimize energy performance in existing buildings economically while transforming their potential uses.

The proposal is an effort meant to sideline such teardown and rebuild tactics and introduce a more thoughtful—if not provocative—sustainable scheme of overlaying existing buildings with a new structural envelope. Constructed from solar-harvesting ETFE fabric systems, (the same material employed by the Eden Project in Cornwall, England, and Beijing’s Water Cube), these architectural shrouds will be resilient to heavy lateral weight loads, insulate, allow light transmission and allow for the possibility of integrated printed photovoltaics.

Blaine Brownell gave the first talk of the Rice School of Architecture fall 2009 lecture series. Brownell was introduced by Associate Professor Dawn Finley of Interloop-Architecture, and his talk was entitled “Material Futures: Thresholds and Potentialities.”

Blaine Brownell now writes a regular online column for Architect magazine. Brownell is one of four featured bloggers, including Aaron Betsky, Hannah McCann, and Lance Hosey. Entitled “Mind & Matter,” Brownell’s blog provides a platform for a broad range of material considerations in design.

Mind & Matter discusses not just emergent materials R&D, but also the possible—or, in some cases, actual—design applications for these next-generation building products. It also delves into the pedagogical and societal aspects of material science, including sustainability, cross-cultural pollination, and the ongoing, radical rethinking of the manmade world.