Verb Matters

The second issue of Verb asks: What can we really build? Verb Matters explores the formal and material possibilities for construction in our present information era, with its extensive data processing, global networking, and increasingly blurred distinctions between natural matter and artificial technology. This critical itinerary begins with reflections on the results of sophisticated ideas applied to the shaping of buildings including Toyo Ito's ephemeral work, recent attention to inflatable architecture and building with air, and the low tech approach of practitioners like LOT/EK. Consideration of the growing potential of current technology is also examined in a piece equating recent sneaker design technology to that of car manufacturing, as well as the use of artificial intelligence in home control networks at MIT's "Media House" project. Colorful, tactile, dense, and packaged in its own very contemporary design, Verb Matters remains devoted to cutting-edge issues in architecture and design.