This project tasked us with researching the life cycle of a chosen material to expose how materials are not neutral artifacts, but momentary embodiments of much longer processes that encompass various scales, locations, temporalities, and cultures. I researched the material life cycle of “earth”and developed a position about its cultural, environmental, and architectural significance. Through a single oblique drawing, I tested an approach to organizing people and objects to encourage interaction and learning about some aspect of the material life cycle. I then further developed these initial ideas by designing a Material Culture Visitor’s Center adjacent to the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland’s vast industrial zone.

An oblique, subsequently animated drawing introduces the workshop as a typology. Ignorance and skepticism are barriers to the adoption of earth in construction. A workshop typology, thus, creates a site for experimentation that invites learning and discovery.

The final design features an all-glass structure on a slope, with interior walls made from earth using various techniques such as rammed earth, compressed earth bricks, and poured earth, showcasing the material’s versatility and diverse aesthetics. The rammed earth walls vary in thickness based on their structural roles: thicker, load-bearing walls span multiple floors, while thinner curtain walls span only one. The visitor’s center is situated on a former plaza, now preserved as the roof, offering views over the river. Visitors enter from the roof via a ramp that doubles as audience seating on the first floor. An exposed excavated back wall emphasizes the stereotomic qualities of the site, highlighting the material processes and the people and landscapes involved in contemporary life, reimagining the center as a place that produces and maintains knowledge.