Loose Fit
Experimental Ceramic Building Materials
Neil Meredith
Sheet Publishing Long Island City, NY Š 2008 Neil Meredith All rights reserved Published 2008 www.sheetd.com/loosefit ISBN 978 1 60402 915 4 PrintING Westcan Printing Group, Canada Design Sheet Design Funded in part by a grant from the European Ceramic Workcentre (.ekwc)
Loose Fit
Experimental Ceramic Building Materials
table of contents Full disclosure: Prior to attending a three-month residency at the European Ceramic Workcentre (.ekwc) in the Netherlands, I knew nothing about ceramics. I did arrive with a few assumptions. The idea of selecting building materials from standardized catalogs is losing credibility amongst a generation of designers embracing new technologies in design and manufacturing. In the United States, ceramic is an underutilized building material with unique properties not found in wood, metal, concrete, or glass. I realized that the only way I was going to learn how to build using ceramics was by actually doing it. For me not knowing was precisely the reason I was there. I came to discover that there are certain things that bricks want to be, but there are also some things that bricks didn’t know they could be (with apologies to Louis Kahn). Ceramic is perhaps the most process-intensive of any plastic medium. From forming to drying to firing to glazing, each step is a small project with its own set of constraints. However limiting on the surface, constraints form the creative source of any material innovation. Historically, designers have been concerned with making shapes; I came to the .ekwc to learn how to shape. The projects described here represent the results of this ongoing process: take an idea, make it, look at the results, then make it again. —Neil Meredith
catenoid tiles
Page 20
Cassini blocks
catenoid blocks
Page 8
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X BLOCKS
Y BRICKS
Page 16
O bricks
Q bricks
Page 12
Q Tiles
Page 12
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Introduction The .ekwc is a workshop whereby participants and staff study the artistic and technical features of ceramic as a medium; experiments are also performed to discover new ways to utilize ceramics in architecture. The knowledge and experience participants gain is widely disseminated, as the purpose of the center is to promulgate and promote developments in ceramic art, design and architecture. To achieve this goal, the center makes working space, living space and a team of specialized staff available each year to close to 50 participants, composed of fine artists, designers and architects. They can choose to work for a continuous three-month period, or in phases. Participants are recruited annually in three ways: 20 through worldwide public enrollment, four through a competition for recent graduates and 20 by invitation. Besides the .ekwc works in the form of projects in conjunction with art education, the ceramic industry, scientific research institutions, museums and galleries, the center is subsidized in its structural tasks by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) and sponsored by Wienerberger, a world leader in the field of ceramic building materials. Apart from its 12 living and working spaces and specialized workshops and equipment, the .ekwc also has an extensive staff of expert employees, the majority of whom have had a background in art or design. These employees guide and advise the participants in such a way that the latter are able to develop their ideas continually. This interactive process, in which participants and staff learn in reciprocity with one another, makes it possible to attract participants who have no prior knowledge or experience of ceramics. The last 16 years have proven that this unique approach results in the attainment of the center’s stated goal: development in ceramics. The center now enjoys international recognition, of which it is justly proud. These factors combine to render the .ekwc unique. Since its opening in 1991, the center welcomes not only ceramicists but also fine artists. This approach has led to fine artists at home and abroad discovering the artistic possibilities of ceramic as a medium and developing these possibilities further in the work they undertake at the .ekwc. Subsequently, designers’ contributions were promoted, first in the form of projects, and then structurally. Currently, one-third of the center’s participants are designers. At the beginning of 2005, the .ekwc took the logical next step to expand, as the policy to attract designers was paying off so quickly, and began to focus on drawing in architecture to a much larger degree than ever before. The three main reasons for this are: the unquestionable benefits from bringing in new people with new ideas; a sense that “the time seemed ripe”, as Dutch architects were and still are receiving a tremendous amount of international attention; and the center wants to continue building on what is not only day-to-day practice in the center but also elsewhere— the ever increasing blurring of boundaries between different disciplines. The center expects that the exchange of ideas between fine art, design and architecture will have a stimulating effect on the artistic and technical development of ceramic as a medium. The .ekwc has a reputation for excellence not only in terms of its artist-in-residence function but also as a center-of-excellence; this can be seen from the fact that the results of its artistic and technical research are published widely. Technical results are published in the form of technical information sheets, of which 18 have already appeared. In November 2005, these English-language information sheets were collected into a book titled The Ceramic Process by A&C Black, London and the University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. In the artistic sphere, the center produces a number of publications each year devoted to individual fine artists and designers or to particular projects. Additionally, the center regularly contributes text and financial support to publications by third parties. For that reason, and for the fact that his art and ways of presenting his findings fits so beautifully with our policy, I am enthusiastic to contribute to the publication in your hands.
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Although Neil was not a participant in the project, his art-residency is very relevant to our ongoing Ceramics and Architecture project. Started in 2005 with the aim of demonstrating to architects that the center is a most suitable place to experiment with new applications of ceramics in architecture, the .ekwc leadership is convinced that designers can be drawn in through this program as they were through similar offerings earlier in the decade. Presently, one-third of our regular artists-in-residence are designers. However, there always are and will be the early birds, whose talents set them apart. Detroit based Neil Meredith is one of this special breed of designers. Neil applied in 2006 for a regular residency and was immediately selected because of his daring proposal. Right from the start, Neil showed a lot of interest in our CAD/CAM system. This resulted in a whole range of experiments with a new kind of brick and roof tile. Instead of stackable, right-angled bricks, he concentrated on more complex, interconnected forms. It is helpful to note that clay, as a raw material for ceramics, should not be used to imitate classical modes of construction which originate from the application of natural stone, but used instead because of its plastic properties, which make the material pre-eminently suitable for organic construction and offer possible new uses for ceramics. Neil’s approach has very much to do with a growing sensitivity to materials and fabrication techniques found among more progressive architects. At the .ekwc this sensitivity was translated into a family of building materials that do not share a singular aesthetic vision but instead reveal a searching for new ways of making and inhabiting space. Add to this a greater consideration for the specific needs of the makers and users of buildings and you arrive at an approach to architecture where the notions of human and environment are central. Neil’s work is a clear expression of this ethos. This explains why his bricks look like triangular or polygonal ice-crystals, while other bulbous ceramic building elements look like gourds. By developing a new type of roof-tile, he produced a multipurpose flattened tube. The cavity of this tube, which has a distinctive isolating quality by itself, can also be used to carry hot-water pipes. The result is a roof-tile which is not only beautiful but very practical as well, more particularly in snow-rich countries. In the spring of 2009, the results of the above mentioned Ceramics & Architecture project will be presented in a exhibition which will travel Europe and the US, and they will also be collected into a publication. Neil Meredith can be sure that the very convincing results of his regular art-residency will be included hors concours. What better compliment could we hope to pay him? —Koos de Jong, Director of the European Ceramic Workcentre (.ekwc)
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Catenoid blocks Building materials are rarely considered as single, designed elements. Consider the construction of a common brick wall: uniform and opaque pieces are stacked to create a solid mass. Now consider stud wall construction: paper thin veneers are sealed together, creating the illusion of mass through layering and surface. The masonry wall is valued for its material solidity and permanence, while the more common stud wall is easily adaptable and accommodates the various mechanical and electrical services of modern buildings. Between the solidity of traditional masonry and the thin-walled volumetric enclosure of contemporary construction exists a third way: using traditional and more durable building materials (in this case ceramic) to enclose space and volume loosely. In this wall system, open ended tube-like units are stacked to create a lightweight and porous enclosure. The created wall is not solid but is instead full of loose spaces and gaps, allowing light and services to work their way through the depth of the wall. When they are used in exterior applications, the interior of the blocks can hold soil or other aggregate material. Alternate stacking configurations are possible by simply rearranging or rotating the units.
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Stacking patterns
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Q Tiles/bricks Bricks and tiles, though materially indistinguishable, are commonly understood as discrete building materials. Bricks are stacked to produce a solid volume, while tiles are arrayed to create a surface. In collapsing this relationship, can a single ceramic unit perform a host of different constructive functions? Could this unit type stack to create walls, overlap to create roof tiles, or nest to create irregular tiling patterns? By extruding clay through a custom laser-cut steel die and then changing the length of the resulting tube, a single hollow profile can be used to create a range of constructive materials. The air cavity within the units also allows for services to pass through what would typically be a solid cross section.
“Batt Insulation� drawing patterns
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Nesting patterns
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Y Bricks Working again with extrusion, the challenge was to create a system that produces an informal or loose configuration while still using a simple repeated unit. A shorter version can be used horizontally as pavers or vertically as a screen wall. A longer version stacks vertically like a brick wall, but the ends are perpendicular to the wall surface, similar to a masonry header coursing. Unlike standard bricks or tiles however there is no idealized configuration. The introduction of each new unit ripples throughout the system, letting forces internal to the stack or field determine the final design. While the system has some strange requirements (namely buttressing and patience on the part of the installer) it does solve some problems inherent with typical masonry construction: specifically, dealing with irregular edges and ways to introduce irregular patterns and openings.
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cassini blocks This project starts with a technique unique to ceramics: slip-casting, or the forming of thin-walled objects using liquid clay slip and a water-absorbent plaster mold. Instead of trying to force ceramics into existing models of building materials, this approach takes the natural efficiencies of the slip-casting process and uses them as constraints for design. Rounded profiles and hollow forms replace solid blocks and rectilinear stacking. As a construction system, Cassini Blocks work similar to a standard concrete masonry unit (CMU) wall. Instead of an extruded rectangle in shape, a family of mathematically derived curves called Cassino Ovals generates rounded, vessel-like units that are selfstacking, and that use their inherent geometry to lock each unit to its neighbor. The wall it produces, while almost completely opaque, has subtle gaps between the stacks that reveal themselves in light as one moves past. Instead of punched rectangular openings for windows and doors, discrete spaces are achieved by removing units, producing tapers and splits.
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Unit type comparison
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Unit nesting options
Wall elevation
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CONTRIBUTORS Koos de Jong has been the director of the .ekwc, combining the former positions of general director and artistic director. As an art historian, he began his career in 1976 as a staff member at the Amsterdam Historic Museum. One year later, he accepted a position at the Provinciaal Overijssels Museum, and became director of this museum after one year. In 1985, he entered the services of the Netherlands Office for Fine Art in Den Haag as the head of the collection department. In 1994, de Jong became the director of the open-air museum known as the Zaanse Schans. His most critical tasks were to develop a more contemporary administrative and commercially feasible structure, and to build a new Zaans Museum; both assignments were completed in the autumn of 1998. Koos is also co-founder for the Preservation and Management Department for the Netherlands Museum Association. Neil Meredith is a former Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Michigan where he operated the schools Digital Fabrication Lab. He holds an M.Arch degree from the University of Michigan and is the founder of the design and fabrication office Sheet. Having worked in Europe, New York and Detroit, he is currently located in New York working as a parametric modeling consultant for Gehry Technologies. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A special thank-you to the staff and fellow artists, designers and architects of the .ekwc for fostering an innovative environment of experimentation and craft.