Blaine Brownell s best-selling Transmaterial series has introduced designers to hundreds of emergent materials that have the potential to transform our built environment. In our new Architecture Brief, Material Strategies, Brownell shows architects how creative applications of these materials achieve such transformations. Chapters based on fundamental material categories examine historical precedents, current opportunities, and future environmental challenges. Case studies featuring detailed illustrations showcase pioneering buildings from today s most forward-thinking architectural firms.

Author Christopher Beorkrem shows how material performance drives the digital fabrication process and determines technique. He has recreated and dissected thirty-six of the most progressive works of architecture of the last few years, with perspectives from the designers so that you can learn from the successes and failures of each project. Including step-by-step diagrams and using consistent language and the simplest construction techniques, he identifies the important characteristics of each material, including connection types, relative costs, deformation, color, texture, finish, dimensional properties, durability, and weathering and waterproofing to link the design outcomes to form. The book is divided into five parts by material – wood, metal, concrete, hybrids, and recycled – to help you reference construction techniques for the fabrication machines you have on-hand.

In this second edition of Material Strategies in Digital Fabrication are new case studies, improved wayfinding, the inclusion of composites and plastics, and references to similar strategies between different projects. In 400 step-by-step diagrams dissecting 39 case studies in 10 countries on 3 continents, the book shows you how material performance drives the digital fabrication process and determines technique. The book identifies the important characteristics of each material, including connection types, relative costs, deformation, color, texture, finish, dimensional properties, durability, and weathering and waterproofing to link design outcomes to form. The book is divided into five main chapters by material; wood, metal, concrete/masonry, composites/plastics, and recycled/pre-cycled, to help you reference construction techniques for the fabrication machines you have on-hand. Includes projects by SHoP Architects, Gramazio & Kohler, Schindlersalmeron, The Institute for Computational Design (Achim Menges, Patkau Architects,Sebastien Wierinck, Blue Dot Furniture, Marble Fairbanks, Studio Gang Architects, Macdowell.Tomova, Thomas Heatherwick Studio, Heather Roberge, MX3D, Matsys, Asbjorn Sondergaard, Block Research Group (Phillipe Block), Ball Nogues Studio, Matter Design, WORK Architecture Company, and SoftLab.

In contrast to much current scholarship on women and material culture which focuses primarily on women as consumers, this essay collection provides case studies of women who produced material objects. The essays collected here make an original contribution to material culture studies by focusing on women's social practices in relation to material culture. The essays as a whole are concerned with women's complex and active engagement with material culture in the various stages of the material object's life cycle, from design and production to consumption, use, and redeployment. Also, theorized and described are the ways in which women engaged in meaning making, identity formation, and commemoration through their manipulation of materials and techniques, ranging from taxidermy and shell work to collecting autographs and making scrapbooks. This volume takes as its object of investigation the overlooked and often despised categories of women's decorative and craft activities as sites of important cultural and social work. This volume is interdisciplinary with essays by art historians, social historians, literary critics, rhetoricians, and museum curators. The scope of the volume is international with essays on eighteenth-century German silhouettes, Australian aboriginal ritual practices, Brittany mourning rites, and Soviet-era recipes that provide a comparative framework for the majority of essays which focus on British and North American women who lived and worked in the long nineteenth century. This volume will appeal to a broad range of students and scholars in women's history, art history, cultural studies, museum studies, anthropology, cultural and social history, literature, rhetoric, and material culture studies.

Material Strategies brings together scholars from different disciplines to explore what dress and textiles can tell us about gender history. Broad in scope – covers women, men, social groupings and nations from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Rich in detail – incorporates illustrations that provide visual evidence for gendered strategies of dress. Combines perspectives from design and textile history, business history, cultural anthropology, social history, art history and cultural history. Considers ‘material strategies’ in relation to production and consumption, the public and the private, the body and sexuality, and national identity. Written in a jargon-free style, making it accessible to readers from a wide range of backgrounds.

Showcases the highly beneficial features arising from the presence of main group elements in organic materials, for the development of more sophisticated, yet simple advanced functional materials Functional organic materials are already a huge area of academic and industrial interest for a host of electronic applications such as Organic Light-Emitting Diodes (OLEDs), Organic Photovoltaics (OPVs), Organic Field-Effect Transistors (OFETs), and more recently Organic Batteries. They are also relevant to a plethora of functional sensory applications. This book provides an in-depth overview of the expanding field of functional hybrid materials, highlighting the incredibly positive aspects of main group centers and strategies that are furthering the creation of better functional materials. Main Group Strategies towards Functional Hybrid Materials features contributions from top specialists in the field, discussing the molecular, supramolecular and polymeric materials and applications of boron, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, and their higher homologues. Hypervalent materials based on the heavier main group elements are also covered. The structure of the book allows the reader to compare differences and similarities between related strategies for several groups of elements, and to draw crosslinks between different sections. The incorporation of main group elements into functional organic materials has emerged as an efficient strategy for tuning materials properties for a wide range of practical applications Covers molecular, supramolecular and polymeric materials featuring boron, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, and their higher homologues Edited by internationally leading researchers in the field, with contributions from top specialists Main Group Strategies towards Functional Hybrid Materials is an essential reference for organo-main group chemists pursuing new advanced functional materials, and for researchers and graduate students working in the fields of organic materials, hybrid materials, main group chemistry, and polymer chemistry.