03.10.2022 Material Reform
Our book Material Reform: Building for a Post-Carbon Future, co-authored with Amica Dall, is out! Pre-order your copy here
09.07.2022 Constructive Disobedience Conference, Germany
Summer Islam will be presenting Constructive Land, our research project as recipients of the SOM Foundation's 2021 European Research Prize fellowship, at the Constructive Disobedience conference (15th-16th September) at TU Braunschweig, Germany.
25.06.2022 Material Reform
Our book Material Reform, due to be released in October 2022, is now available for pre-order!
17.05.2022 Wheelwright Prize
Summer Islam, founding director of Material Cultures, is a finalist for the 2022 Wheelwright Prize alongside Marina Otero, Curry J. Hackett and Feifei Zhou.
12.04.2022 The 27th Biennial of Design, Ljubljana
Projects by Material Cultures will be featured in the BIO27 Super Vernaculars - Design for a Regenerative Future at the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The exhibition opens on the 26th May 2022 and will be running until 29th September 2022. Save the date!
11.04.2022 The RIBA Journal
One of our directors, Paloma Gormley, has been featured as one of the journal's Future Winners. The full article can be found in The RIBA Journal's April 2022 print edition or online here.
29.03.2022 Negroni Talks #33
One of our directors, Summer Islam, featured as a panellist on the Talking Shop! Insulation event. Listen to the event on the Negroni Talks podcast here.
24.03.2022 AJ Small Projects 2022
We are pleased to announce our project with Studio Abroad, Block House, has been shortlisted for the 2022 AJ Small Projects Awards and is now featured in the AJ projects library.
More information can be found here.
25.02.2022 British Pavilion 2023
Our proposal with Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Material Reform, was one of five projects shortlisted for the British Pavilion exhibition at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia.
27.03.2022 Scaffold Podcast
One of our directors, Paloma Gormley, has been interviewed by Matthew Blunderfield for episode 60 of Scaffold produced by the Architecture Foundation.
Listen to the podcast here.
18.02.2022 RIBA South West Awards 2022
We are pleased to announce our project with Studio Abroad, Block House, has been shortlisted for the 2022 RIBA South West Awards.
More information can be found here
19.01.2022 SOM European Research Prize
Our directors Summer Islam and Paloma Gormley have been awarded the 2021 European Research Prize by the SOM foundation in partnership with the Spatial Practises Department at the UAL, and Forestry England, for their project Constructive Land.
More information can be found here.
15.10.2021 House of Annetta, Spitalfields
Carbon copies Exhibition (Material Cultures × MArch Unit 3)
Carbon Copies is being exhibited at the House of Annetta on Princelet Street from the 15th to the 30th of October. The publication is available to buy here.
10.09.2021 Phoenix Project Design Festival
From the 10th-12th of September 2021 Material Cultures will be presenting their housing scheme to the public during the Phoenix Project Design Festival in East Sussex. We look forward to seeing you there!
18.08.2021 Central Saint Martins, Kings Cross
Carbon copies Exhibition (Material Cultures × MArch Unit 3)
For the past three decades mainstream architecture has been addressing our changing climate through reducing the thermal demands of new buildings. This has produced a massive high-tech industry based on energy reducing products, almost all of which are dependent on crude oil. Carbon copies interrogates this narrative by re-imagining iconic residential typologies using a low embodied energy palette. It explores bio-based construction materials that remain part of the decay life cycle, such as hemp, cork, and earth, as well as modes of construction where building parts return to the ground at the end of their life cycle.
10.10.2020 ETH Zurich Seminar Week
New Material Developments, What is Next?
To achieve the net-zero greenhouse gas emissions objective, and keep the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, the building sector needs to shift its goals towards carbon-negative construction materials. In the first talk of the seminar week, the studio invited Marlise Blaser (Elementwerk Istighofen), Katharina Lehmann (Blumer Lehman Holzbau), Summer Islam and Paloma Gormley (Material Culture) to discuss the future of construction materials. The seminar can be viewed here.
10.10.2020 Building Centre
MASS Design and Arup on Material Provenance and the Climate Crisis.
For this evening’s lecture Kelly Alvarez Doran OAA of MASS Design Group and Richard Boyd MEng CEng MICE of Arup will be joined by Cécile Faraud, C40 and Paloma Gormley and Summer Islam of Material Cultures to discuss the relationships between material provenance, embodied energy, and immediate actions the building industry can take to address the Climate Crisis. Meeting the IPCC’s 2030 challenge requires a radical refocusing of our efforts towards embodied energy and material provenance.
05.08.2020 Building a New Rural
In partnership with Grizedale Arts we will be running a summer school amongst the lakeland hills. The workshop will be led by Paloma Gormley and Summer Islam of Material Cultures and Takeshi Hayatsu.