Civil Engineering Association

Basics Architecture: Construction and Materiality

Materials create an ambience and provide texture or substance to architecture. To understand how to use materials effectively, a designer needs to have an understanding of precedent or how materials have been used historically and an awareness of innovations in material application. Both can provide a useful way to develop a range of design approaches.
Construction + Materiality introduces the ideas that ‘make’ architecture and the materials used to create and define spaces. The structure (or frame) that supports a building can be considered to be analogous to the skeleton of a body, and the materials that the structure holds in place akin to the tissue and skin that define a body’s shape and specificity. In this way, construction techniques and materials are the starting point for architectural design; they create the possibilities for shape, form and space.
For an architect to use materials effectively, a sound understanding of construction methods and practices is essential. Construction methods and materials can be expressed in such a way that they immediately reveal the architectural idea behind a building. But not all architecture is ‘true’ and the idea of ‘truth to materials’ is an essential consideration when understanding architecture.

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