A

AIA CES Credits

AV Office

Abstract Publication

Academic Affairs

Academic Calendar, Columbia University

Academic Calendar, GSAPP

Admissions Office

Advanced Standing Waiver Form

Alumni Board

Alumni Office

Architecture Studio Lottery

Assistantships

Avery Library

Avery Review

Avery Shorts

S

STEM Designation

Satisfactory Academic Progress

Scholarships

Skill Trails

Student Affairs

Student Awards

Student Conduct

Student Council (All Programs)

Student Financial Services

Student Health Services at Columbia

Student Organization Handbook

Student Organizations

Student Services Center

Student Services Online (SSOL)

Student Work Online

Studio Culture Policy

Studio Procedures

Summer Workshops

Support GSAPP

Close
This website uses cookies as well as similar tools and technologies to understand visitors' experiences. By continuing to use this website, you consent to Columbia University's usage of cookies and similar technologies, in accordance with the Columbia University Website Cookie Notice Group 6

THE LIBRARY IS OPEN 33: Material Variance

Fri, Nov 6    1pm

Lola Ben-Alon discusses her edited book Material Variance, followed by a conversation with Felecia Davis, Mae-Ling Lokko, Jorge Otero-Pailos, and Jonsara Ruth.

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.


The Library is Open is a lunchtime series featuring recently published works and their authors, curated by Bart-Jan Polman, Director of Exhibitions and Public Programming and Curator of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery at Columbia GSAPP. Hosted in a central location in Avery Hall, the LiO series honors GSAPP’s historical connection to Avery Library, the world’s largest Architecture library.