bauhaus earth names material cultures first bauhaus earth fellows

Bauhaus Earth is pleased to announce the award of its first Fellowship to Material Cultures with the project “Constructive Land Berlin/Brandenburg”. 

Material Cultures

Material Cultures is a not-for-profit organization founded to bring together design, material research and high level strategic thinking to make meaningful progress towards a post-carbon built environment. They work at the intersection of architectural design, engineering, systems thinking, digital technologies and material science, with a focus on regenerative material sourcing and circular economies. 

Their work investigates how material and industrial cultures shape the world and challenges the regulations, supply chains and processes that to a large extent prescribe how the buildings we inhabit are made, function and feel. Their projects engage with the barriers to change, from land-use and policy constraints to technical and material challenges in supply chains and on site. 

Through their work they have demonstrated that low embodied carbon, local materials can be more affordable and durable than globally-sourced, petrochemical-derivative materials, and are capable of comfortably meeting and outperforming industry standards.

Material Cultures: George Massoud, Summer Islam, Paloma Gormley. Image by Ryan Prince

Fellowship Project “Constructive Land Berlin/Brandenburg”

Building on the methodology of their ongoing research project on sustainable forestry and regenerative land management in the UK, Constructive Land, Material Cultures and Bauhaus Earth will collaboratively design and build a bio-based demonstrator building, following an analysis of the Brandenburg region’s bio-based material supply chains and production cycles. The experimental transfer of the previously developed methods to a new political, climatic and cultural context – from the North-East and Yorkshire in the UK to Berlin and Brandenburg – will bring forth both the universal and specific properties of the methodology and its suitability for use in different contexts.

By translating their research into a tangible, innovative and publicly accessible building, the project will contribute to the development of a new architectural vernacular: one whose aesthetics are rooted in circular and bio-based principles. It will support the demonstration of the potency of cross-industry and interdisciplinary collaborations, and the critical urgency of addressing the conditions and health of our landscapes. It will be one of BE’s first steps towards growing the database of exemplary demonstrator projects which show an alternative way forward for the built environment.

Material Cultures Research Project with Master students at Central Saint Martins: Carbon Copies (2021)

“Constructive Land Berlin/Brandenburg” is organized in 2 phases in the course of 2023, with the first phase dedicated to produce an analysis report and the second phase to design and construction. For the kick-off workshop of the project, Summer Islam, George Massoud and Paloma Gormley visit us in Berlin from Feb 15-17, 2023. 

Bauhaus Earth Fellowship Program

The project-based Bauhaus Earth Fellowship Program (BE-FELLOW) is addressed to a diverse spectrum of emerging international practitioners in the fields of architecture, art, design, and engineering, as well as to cross- and interdisciplinary constellations of architectural production. The objective of the program is to identify new, powerful architectural languages of a sustainable built environment and to support its transformation by means of architectural quality and design expression.

BE-FELLOW is a collaboration between Bauhaus Earth and Experimental, the non-profit organization founded by Prof. Regine Leibinger.

For more information, go to the BE-FELLOW Website on bauhauserde.org

Material Cultures Demonstrator Project: Clearfell House (ongoing) (Drawing by Lucy Daw, Hannah Millet, Elliot Wedge)

Title image: Material Cultures Demonstrator Project: Rock Hut (2020) (Image by Rachel Hayton)