Paper

A Tectonics of Ontogenetic Materialism: Three Projects

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Abstract

The effects of human activity at global scale are largely absent from tectonic discourse. This paper presents preliminary concepts and examples toward an expanded conception of what might constitute an architectural tectonics in the Anthropocene. Our habit of evaluating buildings as artifacts – as singular, autonomous objects, as ‘articulations’ of assembly, ‘expressive details,’ or ‘transparencies’ of program or assembly – too often limits building to representation, to mere significations of ecological, cultural, and political realities. Our recent collective focus on building systems ‘performance’ can also limit our understanding and responsibilities relative to larger systems: the assumed fuel of said systems, of material extraction, production, distribution, assembly, and disassembly. Further, our collective entanglement with dynamic, complex planetary systems is at odds with a dominate hylomorphic model of thinking, an ontology of separation: between human and non-human, organic and inorganic, matter and form, thing and idea. Using three recent student architectural thesis projects alongside concepts from recent ‘materialist’ scholars, the author argues that reframing of our epochal perspective from the Holocene to the Anthropocene productively alters our ontological biases. Repositioning our understanding to the human impact on terrestrial systems is crucial to an engaged practice of architecture. The paper addresses design strategies and materialist concepts within the presented works that can potentially shift our tectonic conceptions.

Keywords: Tectonics, Anthropocene, Materialism

How to Cite:

Carver, D., (2023) “A Tectonics of Ontogenetic Materialism: Three Projects”, Building Technology Educators’ Society 2023(1), 335-341. doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/btes.1971