MaPS is offering two ceramic material systems courses this fall. At the GSD Material Practice as Research is offered by Leire Asensio Villoria and Felix Raspall, at the TU Graz Ceramic Re:Visions is offered by the Institut for Structural Design with Stefan Peters, Andreas Trummer, Felix Amtsberg and GSD faculty and TH-Graz visiting professor Martin Bechthold. Student work of these classes will be shown at the 2015 Cevisama in Valencia, Spain.

M. Bechthold delivered a keynote at the 2014 Bergamo, Italy, Science Festival, speaking about the relationship between science and design. He will be giving his next keynote at the IconARCH conference in Konya, Turkey, in November.

The following is an excerpt from the article published in the IconARCH proceedings:

“(…)

Research in Architecture?

Individuals without connections to the building industry are often surprised to hear that research indeed exists in our field. What one could possibly be working on is equally unclear to outsiders, much in contrast to fields such as engineering or medicine where research is widely assumed to be fundamental to progress. There is more understanding of building related research in the University setting, where colleagues from other disciplines expect those affiliated with departments of architecture, landscape architecture or urban design and planning to be scholarly engaged.

At Harvard University I am engaged with a broad range of research projects and topics, most of which are connected through their pursuit of material systems and innovation. Conducted in the context of the Material Processes and Systems (MaPS) group, and often collaborating with Prof. Sayegh’s Responsive Environments and Artifacts (REAL) group, our work is different from yet related to material science, refers to industrial process engineering as much as to chemistry and building physics. It operates on dramatically different scales, from the nano-scale to the scale of the city, with outcomes that range from prototypes and pilot project to patents and papers. Most importantly, however, the work has led to the development of methods that accelerate the rate of innovation and our quest for novelty, ultimately geared towards advancing the built environment to a more sustainable future. This article puts forward several aspects of this work in a provocative, polemical manner as food for thought, not as a literal recipe for success.

(…)”

Please refer to the full paper for further reading.

DRG will offer a robot workshop at the 2012 Vienna RobArch conference. Entitled ‘Robotic Casting’ we will explore novel casting methods that take unique advantage of precise robotic movements and joint orientations. Within the space of three days participants will produce an installation for the Vienna conference. Hosted by the TU Graz we will use a workcell with three ABB IRB 140 robots. Visit the RobArch web site.

DRG work on customization strategies for ceramics was recently featured in the Summer 2012 ‘Process’  issue of ‘Forward’, a publication by the American Institute of Architects. Continue reading →

The Chinese Xinhua News Agency  interviewed Prof. Bechthold for a  TV feature on the topic of sustainable urbanization. The conversation centered on issues of material consumption and opportunities for the creation of closed material flows that replace our currently wasteful pattern where materials are largely land-filled after the useful service life of a building has ended.

DRG and the Responsive Environments Lab are beginning their collaboration with Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, focusing on adaptive material technologies and applications.