A

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

summer workshops

Muddy Makings – Natural Materials in Digital Commons

Jun 15 – Jun 30, 2025

Across New York City

Lola Ben-Alon

and

Olga Carcassi

Research Question

What is the role of material recipes in large-scale digitized nontoxic environments? This workshop will explore computational design responsibilities toward digitally fabricated earth and fiber materials in shelter-making. Over a two-week workshop, students will gain theoretical material knowledge combined with hands-on architectural artifact-making, through immersive muddy experiences. The course will focus on radically healthy, carbon-storing, and accessible plant fiber and earthen materials within urban metabolism using 3D printing technologies as an extension of self to create communal spaces.

Methodology and Process

This workshop will be pursued through a hybrid of theory and practice.

In WEEK 1: MATERIALS KNOWLEDGE, students will investigate and present a range of materials, techniques, and recipes, so to speak. They will engage in 3D printable models within the Rhino and Grasshopper environment and generate sapiently designed printing paths in form of gcodes (i.e., a set of commands that control the 3D printing machines), while also gaining experience on how to develop an extrudable paste with the help of material designer experts. During the afternoons, the students will start their design study by collecting precedents on communal spaces and spaces to rest in different cultures around the world.

In WEEK 2: FABRICATION SOCIALIZATIONS, students will focus on the acts of togetherness in making one collective large-scale architectural installation, selected among the different design proposals developed by the students. The fabrication phase will take place on site to assess the feasibility of the technology in real world conditions. The workshop will conclude with a community celebration, providing an opportunity to engage with and within the final installation and to reflect on the learning process. A final presentation will allow students to present and share their experiences with other members of the community and discuss future applications of low-tech technologies in futuristic craft and design. This gathering will foster dialogues between students, faculty, community members, and participants, reinforcing the importance of collective creations within domesticity of materials.

Outputs and Findings

The outputs and findings of the workshop will include several aspects. Within the “successful” integration of digital design, material experimentation, and hands-on fabrication, this workshop will yield in demonstrating scalability of ubiquitous agrowaste and construction soil residues and their potential within the sustainable building industry. Nonetheless, inspired by the concept of communal and resting space, additional intangible outputs will include notions of engagement with materials in an intimate connection through design-build processes, and real-scale articulations that remain largely unexplored.

While computational tools enable intricate design possibilities, fabrication processes require further messy opportunities for simplifications to accommodate material constraints and printing inaccuracies. This fabrication study will provide insights into the variability of 3D-printing itself, and of earth-based materials and mixtures, in ways disseminated through publications for scientific journals, for instance, by recording drying times, structural performances, and environmental exposures.

The collaboration between students from different backgrounds and cultural experiences to foster deep realizations of constructibility of materials is hereby manifested by the potential agency of digital fabrication and machines.

Download the workshop outline

Other 2025 workshops

Archiving as Exercise	Sky Gellatly, Karen Wong	Portland, Oregon	Aug 2 – Aug 8, 2025
MONSOON COMMONS in BENGALURU	Sonal Beri, Sandro Marpillero	Bengaluru	Jul 21 – Aug 8, 2025
Flashing Arcs and Crater-Clouds: Revisiting Volcanology in Southern Italy	Mark Wasiuta	Southern Italy	Jul 1 – Jul 10, 2025
ROMA 2025: Infrastructures and Interruptions in the Year of the Jubilee	James Piacentini	Rome	Jun 20 – Jun 28, 2025
Exploring Metal Casting and Collaborative Experimental Preservation	Mika Tal, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Kate Allen	Birmingham, AL	Jun 2 – Jun 13, 2025