Material Acts: Experimentation in Architecture and Design examines the role of nature as a starting point for material experimentation in the domains of architecture, craft, and science. The exhibition is organized around five material acts—re-fusing, stitching, animating, disassembling, and feeding. Each act illustrates key events in a material’s production, exploring the dynamic transformation of materials from static objects into processes of change. The exhibition highlights new material practices alongside the rich milieu of ideas that accompany their making, revisiting terms such as "nature," "innovation," and "sustainability."

adobeisnotsoftware is the earthen education and advocacy arm of Loescher Meachem Architects, a California-based architecture firm specializing in adaptive reuse, high-performance workplaces, technical environments, and new capacities of adobe construction. Through public talks and workshops, Adobeisnotsoftware disseminates knowledge of building with and caring for adobe structures.

After Architecture is an architecture studio based in Charlottesville, Virginia, led by Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann, both assistant professors of architecture at the University of Virginia. The studio uses computational tools to explore new applications for industrial waste output and non-industrial materials, such as non-linear wood and invasive species of bamboo. After Architecture develops altered building methods to address and ease the construction industry’s reliance on rationalized and extractive manufacturing processes.

Anupama Kundoo is the director of Anupama Kundoo Architects, based in Berlin, Germany, Pune, and Pondicherry, India. Her practice focuses on low-environmental impact designs and improving socio-economic conditions through construction processes that disseminate non-industrial material knowledge. Kundoo’s research extends to housing and clay firing techniques, emphasizing environmentally conscious architecture.

Assemble is a London-based collective of architects, artists, designers, and practitioners from various fields. They develop embedded modes of procurement and delivery, often initiating projects in collaboration with community groups. Assemble’s members frequently participate in the building process as craftspeople and manual workers, maintaining active involvement in a project’s life beyond construction completion.

Assia Crawford is an assistant professor in technology in architecture at the University of Colorado. Her research challenges the inanimate status of architectural materials by embedding living matter into familiar craft substrates such as clay. Crawford’s work speculates on modes of performance, including carbon sequestration by algae-laden hydrogels, activating otherwise abiotic structures.

Atelier LUMA, the research design lab of LUMA Arles, explores the possibilities of nonextractivist and undervalued local materials like industrial byproducts, waste, and lesser-considered plant material. Their bioregional research has produced bioplastic tiles dyed with algae and panels made of salt waste, soil, and plant fibers. Atelier LUMA collaborates on regional and international scales with farmers, builders, and research institutions.

BC Architects is a Brussels-based workers’ cooperative founded by Ken De Cooman, Nicolas Coeckelberghs, Laurens Bekemans, and Wes Degreef. The firm advances bioregional construction methods, drawing on local material sources and building knowledge, rather than relying on transcontinental supply chains and standardized systems.

Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is an architect and urban designer, currently an assistant professor of architectural and urban design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne. She leads the Research and Development for Innovation on Architecture, Urban Design, and Territory Lab. Malterre-Barthes’ research focuses on the political economy of space production, material extraction, and climate. She launched the “Global Moratorium on New Construction” initiative at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Directed by Doris Sung, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Southern California, DOSU Studio Architecture develops material systems that respond to environmental changes without electrification or monitoring. The studio explores models that harness innate material properties, such as the differential contraction rates of metals, to initiate changes in form and performance.

Dylan Wood is an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Oregon, where his work intersects material-responsive computational design and advanced manufacturing. His research spans architectural practice, academic fabrication spaces, and commercial enterprises, exploring how computational design enables efficient construction and novel geometries.

Situated at ETH Zürich, Gramazio Kohler Research, led by Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler, experiments with additive robotic fabrication to create nonstandardized architectural components. The team scripts code to guide the aggregation of fluid matter like gravel and mud into calibrated and structurally active formations.

HANNAH, directed by Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic, is an architectural office based in Ithaca, New York. The practice retools digital manufacturing techniques to exploit building materials’ specific capacities, such as the pliability of wood. HANNAH’s experiments redefine familiar products and integrate waste materials into structural and formal roles.

Joar Nango is an architect and artist rooted in Sápmi, the traditional Sámi territory covering parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Nango’s work, through site-specific installations and zines, brings Sámi construction traditions into dialogue with new media, challenging capitalist knowledge systems.

Lola Ben-Alon teaches at Natural Materials Lab, where she instructs in earthen building methods, including both traditional techniques like cob and contemporary possibilities such as 3-D printing architectural fibers. Her platform spans from fabrication seminars to on-site testing, recovering and expanding techniques overshadowed by colonial and capitalist structures.

Maru Garcia, an artist and chemist, integrates artistic and scientific production modes. Her work, often set in gallery and museum spaces transformed into laboratory settings, involves cultivating symbiotic cultures and harvesting byproducts as architectural skins and molds. Garcia’s background in plant chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry informs her practice.

Omar Khan is a professor and head of the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. His research explores intelligence in materials through animated architectures, integrating sensing equipment into flexible systems that respond to environmental fluctuations, emulating homeostasis.

Post Rock, composed of Meredith Miller, Thom Moran, and Chris Humphrey, is a research initiative based at the University of Michigan. The team explores waste plastics from the Michigan auto industry to create new building materials. Their work spans speculative experiments and product development, conducted in academic and commercial fabrication spaces.

Rael San Fratello, run by architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, utilizes Colorado’s clay-heavy soil to experiment with 3-D printing adobe structures. Their practice, based in California, investigates sustainable construction methods, including the maintenance and eventual erosion of silos, hearths, and other structures.

Sara Inga Utsi Bongo is a lecturer and practitioner specializing in duodji, Sámi crafting methods. Drawing on her deep familiarity with reindeer herding, she prepares traditional duodji items using reindeer hide and fur. Bongo’s work maintains and transfers traditional Sámi craft knowledge.

SOFTLAB, directed by Felecia Davis, an associate professor at Penn State University’s Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, tests novel textile applications from the nano scale to architecture. The group’s research often involves translating textile techniques into computer codes that guide digital fabrication methods.

Soft Matters is a research group at Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, led by Aurélie Mosse and Jean-François Bassereau. The group focuses on developing flexible materials, from textiles to biological matter, as alternatives to the rigid products dominating the construction industry, thus counteracting their carbon footprint.

Sutherlin Santo, operated by Garrett and Paul Sutherlin Santo in Portland, Oregon, modifies digital fabrication technologies to extrude biological material into proto-architectural components. Their work reengineers the life cycle of durable materials, participating in a circular economy through biodegradable biogels.

Yogiaman Tracy Design, led by Christine Yogiaman and Kenneth Tracy, is a research and design practice that augments craft traditions with contemporary fabrication methods. Their work explores reapplying traditional techniques, such as knitting, as formwork in modern architectural contexts.

Kate Yeh Chiu is a designer, editor, and arts organizer whose work probes material flows and labor conditions at the intersections of architecture and cultural production. She is the executive director of Materials & Applications and editor-at-large of the Avery Review. Chiu also holds a design faculty position at the University of Southern California and has engaged in projects exhibited at the Oslo Architectural Triennale and Milan Triennale. With a background in editing and teaching, Chiu contributes to the discourse on materiality and design practices.

Jia Yi Gu is a designer, scholar, and curator who operates at the intersection of art and architecture. She is an assistant professor in architecture at Harvey Mudd College, codirector of architecture studio Spinagu, and the former executive director of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House. Gu holds a master’s of architecture degree from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she graduated with distinction. Her work spans academia, with teaching positions at California College of the Arts, Syracuse University, and University of Texas at Austin, and contributions to Log, e-flux Architecture, and MAS Context.

Christina Cogdell is a professor of design, specializing in history, theory, and criticism, and a chancellor’s fellow at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Toward a Living Architecture? Complexism and Biology in Generative Design (University of Minnesota Press, 2018). Cogdell’s current research and teaching focus on biodesign theory and practice. She is a catalogue essayist and member of the advisory team for Material Acts.

Zofia Trafas White is a researcher, exhibition curator, and writer with a specialist interest in architecture, design, and science. She is a curator in the design, architecture, and digital department at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. Her research interests include the intersections of architecture and technology, cultural understandings of science, and the curatorial practice of exhibiting architecture. Trafas White is also a catalogue essayist and contributor to the exhibition advisory team for Material Acts.

Becca Lofchie is a Los Angeles-based designer and artist specializing in print and book design. She has designed catalogs for museums and major galleries and teaches design at Pomona College. Lofchie’s work explores the materiality of print and digital publishing, having experimented with binding various media, including textiles. She is responsible for the design and production of the exhibition text and promotional materials for Material Acts.

Craft Contemporary, established in 1973, is an art museum with a unique focus on showcasing the transformative power of craft, located in Los Angeles. As a noncollecting institution, the Craft Contemporary mission is to educate, captivate, provoke, empower, and heal through craft. Craft Contemporary prioritizes presenting the work of both emerging and established artists who push traditional craft techniques in innovative directions, particularly highlighting culturally diverse and under-recognized creators. Through collaborations, hands-on experiences, and over 90 art-making workshops and public programs annually, Craft Contemporary aims to engage visitors actively. The intimate, approachable museum space fosters an interactive and accessible environment. Craft Contemporary, formerly known as the Craft & Folk Art Museum, embraces a forward-looking approach, reflecting programmatic changes made over the past half-decade. To further enhance accessibility, free admission is offered every Sunday, removing economic barriers to experiencing Craft Contemporary exhibitions and programming.