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Material Ecology

Brilliant, beautiful, and stylish MIT polymath Neri Oxman, coiner of the term Material Ecology and pioneer in the research discipline, observes how matter is not secondary to shape but is, rather, a progenitor to form.

“Today, perhaps under the imperatives of growing recognition of the ecological failures of modern design, inspired by the growing presence of advanced fabrication methods, design culture is witnessing a new materiality. Within the last decade in both industrial design and architecture, a new body of knowledge is emerging within architectural praxis.

“Examples of the growing interest in the technological potential of innovative material usage and material innovation as a source of design generation are developments in biomaterials, mediated and responsive materials, as well as composite materials. With the growing relevance of “materialization”, new frontiers of material science and digital fabrication are supporting the emergence of new perspectives in architectural and industrial design.

“Thus the role of digital design research as the enabling environment of the transformation to a new age of material-based design in various design disciplines has become the cutting edge of computational design research. Here we are at the cusp of a new paradigm inspired by the Troika structure of craft, at the interaction of Materials Science, Digital Fabrication and the environment.

“Material Ecology is an emerging field in design denoting informed relations between products, buildings, systems, and their environment (Oxman, 2010).

“Defined as the study and design of products and processes integrating environmentally aware computational form-generation and digital fabrication, the field operates at the intersection of Biology, Material Science & Engineering, and Computer Science with emphasis on environmentally informed digital design and fabrication.”

See:

Neri Oxman, “Material Ecology.” Abstract, 21 February 2014.. ”

Neri Oxman, Mediated Matter, MIT Media Lab People

“Style | Who is Neri Oxman?,” Penelope Green, The New York Times, Style, 6 October 2018

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collections care & engineered resilience

As the markets for works of art, collections care, and engineered resilience in the built environment (private collections, museums – public and private, galleries, fairs, corporate and university collections, etc.) converge, renewable energy will be a factor.

“Underlying property increases in value by virtue of the fact that positive externalities associated with the performance of the resilience investments represents a superior outcome to the status quo – even when netted out by any costs.” (Keenan et.al.)

Companies have signed long-term contracts to purchase solar and wind energy in 28 markets.

Cost declines and efficiency improvements are making renewables cost-competitive with wholesale power prices of more traditional sources of electricity.

While larger corporations are entering into corporate power purchase agreements (PPA),

smaller companies are increasingly pooling electricity demand together to access economies of scale achieved through solar and wind projects.

This is called “aggregation.”

“Aggregation” might be a workable model for entities in the art market concerned about the long-term resilience of structures and care and value of works and collections.


See: 1) Jesse M. Keenan, Thomas Hill, Anurag Gumber, “Climate Gentrification: From Theory to Empiricism in Miami-Dade County,” IOPScience, 23 April 2018; 2) “Corporations Already Purchased Record Clean Energy Volumes in 2018, and It’s Not an Anomaly,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 9 August 2018

 

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