“Despite the explosion of new material offerings and the significance of material innovation in the design and construction fields, there is a lack of knowledge about the comprehensive scope of this trend and its future implications,” writes Blaine Brownell, AIA, in the introduction of his most recent material index Transmaterial Next: A Catalog of Materials that Redefine Our Future (Princeton Architectural Press, 2017) released this month. (Brownell is a regular contributor to ARCHITECT and authors the semi-monthly Mind & Matter column.)
The latest in Brownell’s Transmaterial series—Transmaterial (Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), Transmaterial 2 (Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), and Transmaterial 3 (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010)—Transmaterial Next is an encyclopedia of material innovations and applications, broken down into 10 key categories: concrete, mineral, metal, wood and biomaterials, plastic and rubber, glass, paint and coatings, fabric, light, and digital. Within each section, Brownell highlights roughly a dozen projects that, he argues, “have significant potential to transform future products, buildings, and cities.”
While the 100-plus materials do not all have pragmatic futures in prolific applications (Brownell highlights a chair made of an artichoke thistle fiber–reinforced polymer), the author is transparent in his reasoning for including such examples. “In many instances, the material entries represent broader trends that are significant,” Brownell writes. “I have taken an intentionally broad view of what constitutes ‘material.’ ”
As with Brownell's first three catalogs, in Transmaterial Next he assesses each application based on seven key trends: ultra performance, multidimensionality, repurposing, recombination, intelligence (smart design), transformational, and interfacial. With these trends, Brownell draws connections among seemingly unlike applications. "For example," he writes, "an aluminum floor system and polypropylene chair are made of different substances, but they would be similarly notable in their use of recycled materials."
Though material innovations are rapidly changing, many of Transmaterial's entries highlight the best of the best from the past few years. Consider HouMinn Practice's variable vacuum-formed plastic (VarVac), a winner of ARCHITECT's 2014 R+D Awards, celebrated by juror Mimi Love for its “infinite variety of shapes that can be made by a tight grid of hexagons;" or Do|Su Studio Architecture's thermobiometal structural shell, Exo, also a 2014 R+D winner; and additive manufacturing platform G3DP (Glass 3D Printing) by MIT Media Lab’s Mediated Matter Group with the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, which ARCHITECT editor Wanda Lau explored in 2015. For these and all other entries, Brownell outlines material components, applications, types and sizes, environmental factors, test locations, limitations, future impacts, and commercial readiness.
"At a time when society is increasingly turning to expedient, quantitative, return-on-investment-focused solutions to contemporary problems, the thoughtful consideration of the ways in which we evaluate, design, construct, and transform the physical environment is more important than ever," Brownell concludes his introduction. "It is my hope that this book will enable you to engage these implications and opportunities in a new way, and that it will inspire your own creative endeavors."
