Material Cultures — Material Reform

The first book by Material Cultures, a not-for-profit organisation that designs and researches with natural materials, arguing for a different way of building.

Paloma Gormley, Summer Islam and George Massoud, writing with Amica Dall, look at the systems, cultures and infrastructure behind the building industry, and at how its reliance on exploited people and damaged land came about. Their short essays sketch alternatives that take a more holistic view of the built environment, and suggest that working directly with materials can lead to new ways of talking about building, in place of those inherited from a small circle of authors.

Photographs by Jess Gough run through the book as a visual essay on what industrialisation has done to landscapes, seen at a range of scales. The introduction is by Charlotte Malterre-Barthes.

MACK, 2022. 144 pages, paperback, 11 x 18 cm.