Concrete

Material Translation in Practice

• Concrete is, after water, the most widely consumed substance on Earth. Its scale and impact exceed human imagination. This project shows how material translation, a methodology within design and material research, can make data tangible and relatable. It illustrates concrete’s complexities not as an abstraction but as lived experience, bringing abstract systems down to a human, understandable scale.

• Where does the material translation come from?

• Within the field of design, disciplines such as material design, material research, and material studies already work with materials as the focus of their practice. These disciplines are mostly concerned with direct material applications for the consumer sector and with material innovation. Material translation, a design methodology developed through this project, proposes a different approach to materials: making them, and the problems they create, more visible and understandable.

  Material translation is a cross-disciplinary practice. It borrows the understanding-seeking aim of theory, the making methods of craft and design, and the communicative intent of art.

• Concrete is, after water, the most widely consumed substance on Earth. Its scale and impact exceed human imagination. This project shows how material translation, a methodology within design and material research, can make data tangible and relatable. It illustrates concrete’s complexities not as an abstraction but as lived experience, bringing abstract systems down to a human, understandable scale.

• Where does the material translation come from?

• Within the field of design, disciplines such as material design, material research, and material studies already work with materials as the focus of their practice. These disciplines are mostly concerned with direct material applications for the consumer sector and with material innovation. Material translation, a design methodology developed through this project, proposes a different approach to materials: making them, and the problems they create, more visible and understandable.

  Material translation is a cross-disciplinary practice. It borrows the understanding-seeking aim of theory, the making methods of craft and design, and the communicative intent of art.