The Weight of Things
Year
2025
Today, material selection in architecture has been radically simplified, mediated by digital libraries that offer a virtual universe of seemingly infinite textures and appealing surfaces.Yet in this process, the real implications of each material are often ignored: its extractive origin, its industrial transformation, its environmental footprint. The impact of these choices is anything but abstract. Every material carries weight: embodied energy, emissions, waste. And yet, many are chosen for their appearance or availability, reduced to generic names and stripped of context.
Conceived as neutral design tools, these libraries also function as involuntary archives. They preserve a memory of materials that may one day vanish, or that the future will be forced to confront, recycle, or repair. In their apparent neutrality, these collections become both a record of our indifference to environmental challenges and a material record of our time.
This project invites us to reflect on the responsibility embedded in every material decision, and to recognize that what may seem like a purely aesthetic or technical choice can carry lasting, cumulative consequences. Each choice of material is, ultimately, a statement about the world we want to build, or destroy.