Material Reform: Building for a Post-Carbon Future

This acclaimed and bestselling book by design and research practice Material Cultures brings together a series of short, incisive essays on the cultures, systems, and infrastructures that shape the architectural industry and the destructive ecologies it fosters. Texts centred around key topics including resources, maintenance, agriculture, land use, and value are interwoven with a visual essay capturing the impact of industrialisation on landscapes at different scales. The building practices dominating contemporary architecture are rooted in the exploitation of people and the degradation of our landscapes. Here, Paloma Gormley, Summer Islam, and George Massoud explore how this has come about and how alternative systems, with holistic approaches to the built environment, might be formulated. Through text and visuals, concepts and practice, Material Reform explores how developing a direct relationship with materials can help us find new languages with the potential to supersede those we have inherited from a narrow lineage of authors. These discursive threads come together to form a vital sourcebook for rethinking our relationships to materials, land, and development, in all their crucial intersections. This new edition has been updated for 2024.

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Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Summer Saud Islam
2023
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Culture

Culture (ˈkʌltʃər) is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups. Culture is often originated from or attributed to a specific region or location. Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies.

Material culture

Material culture is the aspect of social reality grounded in the objects and architecture that surround people. It includes the usage, consumption, creation, and trade of objects as well as the behaviors, norms, and rituals that the objects create or take part in. Some scholars also include other intangible phenomena that include sound, smell and events, while some even consider language and media as part of it.

Alternative school

An alternative school is an educational establishment with a curriculum and methods that are nontraditional. Such schools offer a wide range of philosophies and teaching methods; some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, while others are more ad hoc assemblies of teachers and students dissatisfied with some aspect of mainstream or traditional education.

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