Material Variance

This book insists on materials not as passive inputs but as unruly agents, shaped by and shaping the political, ecological, and cultural processes around them.

Raw building materials are inherently variable. This variability shapes global supply chains, labor relations, infrastructure?, and trade networks. And yet, within the context of building design, materials are often treated as static commodities. Material Variance resists this perception, unfolding instead a framework for designing through and with living matter that is uncertain, messy, and dynamic. The book insists on materials not as passive inputs but as unruly agents, shaped by and shaping the political, ecological, and cultural processes around them. Convening material researchers, building scientists, architects, and artists, Material Variance aims to collectively expand architecture and design’s material lexicon and unsettle its disciplinary boundaries. The book interrogates the assumptions of refinement, standardization, and technocratic control to advance alternative fabrication practices, alchemical processes, and methods for working with indeterminate matter. From poetic field recordings to scientific analyses, the book opens up a space for thinking across theory and practice, across geological particles and living species, and across various scales, forms, and practices. This edition of Material Variance features three distinct covers, each one printed with a unique matrix, ink, paper stock, and tip-in, extending the notion of variance to production of the object itself. With contributions from David Benjamin, Ethan Bordeau, Olga Beatrice Carcassi, Caitlin Charlet, Felecia Davis, Andrés Jaque, Leslie Lok, Mae-ling Lokko, Claudia Marais, Adam Marcus, V. Mitch McEwen, Ruth Morrow, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Ronald Rael, Jonsara Ruth, and Laia Mogas-Soldevila.