Adam Marcus, Favrot IV Associate Professor of Architecture and Research Director of the Center on Climate Change and Urbanism, and Assistant Professor of Architecture, Assia Crawford Ph.D., have each written a chapter in a new book titled Claying Architecture: Making Machine and Material Kin edited by Shelby Doyle, Frank Melendez, Kelley Van Dyck Murphy, and Jonathan A. Scelsa. The volume, published by Applied Research and Design/ORO Editions, presents a curated collection of essays and projects from architects, designers, and researchers who are examining the role of clay 3D printing as a protagonist that establishes kinships between technology, environment, and culture. 

Marcus’s chapter, “Domestic Entanglements: Architectural Ceramic Scaffolds for Life and Kinship,” draws on work from his research studio Ecological Tectonics: Architectural Ceramic Assemblies for Climate Adaptation, which centers the contribution of his students Ben Cornett, Kayleigh Macumber, Sophia Lindahl, and Daphne Vore.

When previously asked about the essay’s subject, Marcus has expressed, “We study models of both human and more-than-human habitation as precedents and inspiration for how architects might re-conceptualize and re-materialize domestic space.” Working alongside his students, Marcus investigates how clay’s unbounded materiality shapes design from the inside out. He focuses on the ways ceramic matter can advance climate resilience via world-making. The foundation of his work is the classroom, the city of New Orleans, other scholars, and students who populate his community. 

In Crawford’s chapter “The Algae Lab: Ceramic Bio‑Scapes,” she helps “potentially colluding” ceramics (coated in well-hydrated algae) as they reach across countertops, preparing them for exhibition at Craft Contemporary in San Francisco. The ceramic habitats that are cultivated are allowed opportunity to breathe; all the while, Crawford is there photographing her process and cataloguing the algae’s life cycle in essay form. She talks to her work. 

Marcus and Crawford, stand at the forefront of material performance and research as they investigate new ways of thinking about design and our modes of engagement with it. Their work advances a broader disciplinary shift toward materials that shape environmental and social conditions.

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