Abstract

The discourse surrounding advanced material research in the field of architecture has, traditionally, sought novel design opportunities through aligning automated bespoke manufacturing, material performance and environmental responsiveness. Where material characteristics, crafted through automated production their subsequent behavior define the performative architectural system, then it is typically called a material system. Discussing architecture’s ramifications on health and social function prompts scrutiny of the material system’s often self-referential dialogue – of intra-systemic relationships of material hierarchies and atmospheric forces. Exploring an eco-social performativity requires the material system’s embrace of the extra-systemic – namely, human agency deemed inextricable from the actions shaping perception of the material system. Accordingly, the performative condition is no longer a priori but situational – a temporal state only proffered by the inquisitor-actor. The material system dramatically shifts to that of agent with unknown capacity. Only through reciprocal perturbations between extra- and material-systemic agents do ill-defined performative natures become elaborated.