Matter Design and CEMEX unveil new research on concrete at TED 2019

2019-04-15T14:53:00-04:00

Famous for their popular talks, TED's 2019 conference, which kicks off today in Vancouver, promises thought-provoking speeches from the likes of people such as Twitter's chief executive Jack Dorsey, and the journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who broke last year's Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Amongst the tech innovators and political activists, Brandon Clifford of the Cambridge-based firm Matter Design will be unveiling new research on concrete forms alongside CEMEX Global R&D. Clifford is a 2019 TED Fellow, selected by the program for his research into ancient buildings techniques and technologies.

Walking Assembly. Courtesy of Matter Design.

An MIT architecture professor, Clifford researches early methods of construction, translating them into a modern context and applying them to contemporary buildings and projects. Past research has delved into Bronze Age stone-stacking techniques, which Clifford and his team used to explore new uses of construction waste.

His latest focus is on megali...

Matter Design's Five Fields Play Structure Reinvents the Purpose of Play

2017-02-21T21:01:00-05:00

The intent is to not ask what the structure does, but how it imagines new possibilities

It has been said that play is the exultation of the possible. The Five Fields Play Structure then, is the fullest realization of this theory on play. Matter Design, an interdisciplinary design practice founded in 2008 by Brandon Clifford and Wes McGee, collaborated with FR|SCH, an architecture and design studio founded by Michael Schanbacher and Kerri Frick, to design this structure that proudly has no purpose. Instead, the form becomes a blank canvas meant for childish exploration and the cultivation of their imagination.

The design resists any directive and rejects specified, singular usage. Twenty-foot tall vertical elements seem to contribute to the structure at one moment, but then extend into the landscape. Doors and stairs, while standard architectural elements, are rethought to lead to nowhere and color is used as a suggestive rather than a clear label on entries and key moments. Another prominent design strategy was to provide multiple means of access to any location. These ...

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Matter Design and CEMEX unveil new research on concrete at TED 2019

Matter Design's Five Fields Play Structure Reinvents the Purpose of Play