Material Performances – Architecture Faculty Show ( Nov 2nd to 20th ) with work from faculty members, Ben Krone, Jonathan Scelsa and Brian Phillips.
Materials are the inspiration of many a design project. In this exhibit four architects and faculty members from the Architecture department at Penn Design demonstrate their inventiveness in re-conceptualizing the architectural possibilities of common and at times ubiquitous materials – canvas, polypropylene, felt and fiber cement. In a chance encounter with rain, light, sound and surface inscriptions, what was once common has now been transformed into a material with significantly enhanced performative characteristics. This exhibit introduces us to the form finding promise of planar sheet polymers (Scelsa’s Plastic Flowers); the environmental capacity of high performance canvas (Krone’s Canopy); the ornamental aptitude of cementitious panels (Phillips’ Tattoo/ Skinny House ) and the sound absorptive potential of wool felt ( Krone’s RMDH Music Experience ). Each of the four projects captured in Material Performances ask us to look anew at the infinite possibilities for design that existing materials afford when we actively interrogate their performative dimensions.
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