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CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION Materials for Architecture 2018 reviewed
Taking place at the ILEC Conference Centre in May, Materials for Architecture 2018 was a conference and exhibition that promised visitors “innovation in material specification” with a high level speaker programme which took the event up a notch from its inaugural entry last year. Architectural journalist and author Ruth Slavid, who chaired the two-day conference, reinforced the worth of the subject matter, proposing that materiality was “what turns abstract ideas into living, operating, usable buildings.” She told the audience: “With the best understanding of materials, specifiers will have the best-equipped armoury of knowledge from which to create buildings that are functional, beautiful, innovative and environmental.” Kicking off the first day, Nick Ling, technical lead at Heatherwick Studio, presented an impressive array of recent projects by the practice in the context of
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what he said was a goal of reinventing design typologies while pushing the boundaries of material design and specification – fitting the conference’s theme precisely.
Starting with the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape
Town, which set a new museum and hotel inside ‘carved out’ early-20th century grain silos, Ling described how the challenge of cutting through 42 huge concrete cylinders was addressed: “We 3D mapped and painstakingly defined them,” said Ling. He also described the creation of oscillating aluminium-embossed tassels for the Bund Financial Centre in Shanghai, and the merging of engineered timber cassettes to create “a home that people wouldn’t have dared build themselves” for Maggie’s Yorkshire, both of which gave material inspiration to the audience. Michael Stacey of Michael Stacey Architects made a grand tour of aluminium, making a case for the material’s
appeal to architects, and for its place in the sustainability Zeitgeist, focusing also on durability. “One of the problems with materials is architects tend to remember what their professor told them in college, and we need to remember to keep up to date, from first principles,” said Stacey, also calling for its expected service life to be extended from 40 to 80 years. VM Zinc’s Jonathan Lowy championed
the “timeless aesthetic” of zinc for building envelopes, as well as explaining the useful properties and innovative functions that the material offers to architects and designers. Architect James Walsh from studioanyo catalogued some useful materials for modular construction in his talk, followed by Graeme Bell from Aurubis, who discussed advances in copper and copper alloys for architectural facades. The Flintman Company’s David Smith distilled 30 years of experience crafting flint stone to share “the craftsman’s perspective”
ADF JULY 2018
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