Building Materials

Regular price €102.99
Regular price €103.99 Sale Sale price €102.99
A01=Katie Lloyd Thomas
A01=Professor Katie Lloyd Thomas
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Katie Lloyd Thomas
Author_Professor Katie Lloyd Thomas
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=AMA
Category=AMC
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€100 and above
PS=Active
softlaunch

Product details

  • ISBN 9781350176225
  • Weight: 704g
  • Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 16 Dec 2021
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock

10-20 Working Days
: On Backorder

Will Deliver When Available
: On Pre-Order or Reprinting

We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!

At a time of unprecedented levels of change in the production of building materials and their deployment in construction, better theoretical and historical tools are needed to understand these new developments and how they are altering the practices and concepts of architecture. Building Materials offers a radical rethink of how materials, as they are constituted in architectural practice, are themselves constructed and, in turn, uncovers a vast and neglected resource of architectural writing about materials as they are mobilized in architecture.

The book is unique in conceiving architectural specification as a starting point for architectural theory, arguing that how materials are prescribed - through a range of practices from the literal processes of procurement and manufacture to epistemological, contractual, social and economic frameworks - radically alters their potential in architecture. Drawing on the work of French philosopher Gilbert Simondon, as well as close readings of everyday specifications from the 18th to 21st centuries, the book reveals that materials do not pre-exist their shaping or use in the world, but come into being through the processes that constitute them.

The book addresses three distinct methods of specification each through the lens of a different material – ‘naming’ through timber, ‘process-based’ through concrete, and ‘performance specification’ through glass – in turn revealing how the process of architectural specification (or ‘Preliminary Operations’ as Simondon puts it) allows for the development of specific relationships between material and function.

Katie Lloyd Thomas is Professor of Theory and History of Architecture at Newcastle University. Previous publications include Material Matters (2007) and Industries of Architecture (2015).