POSTPONED Heavy: Matter, Making, and Testing (Designing With Next-Generation Precast Concrete)

Due to new guidelines for public gatherings issued by Penn in response to the coronavirus outbreak, this event will not be held as originally scheduled. We are working to re-schedule. Check back for updates, and thank you for your understanding.

Student work from Weitzman Lecturer Richard Garber's fall 2019 seminar "Matter, Making, And Testing: Designing With Next Generation Precast Concrete" will be on view at the Pennovation Center from March 16 through March 31. An opening reception will be held on March 23 at 7:00pm.

The seminar was designed in partnership with Northeast Precast (NEP), a precast concrete company based in Millville, New Jersey, which gave 18 Weitzman students unprecedented access to places where precast concrete is made, formed, and put into action.

Utilizing NEP’s facilities and their workforce, a group of professional engineers and concrete experts, students worked in teams to produce a series of panel prototypes for wall assemblies that respond to structural, thermal, and water-proofing performance, and included the construction feasibility of their work.

Students developed their panels three-dimensionally, produced shop drawings to convey their design intentions to NEP, and ultimately worked with NEP’s experts at their plant to produce the work that is being exhibited. Garber calls the resulting work "speculative, fun, and heavy!"

This semester, Garber is co-teaching a 704 studio with Miller Professor and Chair of Architecture Winka Dubbeldam titled  "Hybrids & Material Ecologies."

In this studio, students are exploring hybrid models of architecture schools and archives and also traveled to NEP for a workshop. Their research will culminate in a building design proposal for the David Azrieli School of Architecture.