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ACAN Australia 2024-Concrete Eulogies_280224_Figshare.pdf

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posted on 2024-07-11, 15:44 authored by PETER RAISBECKPETER RAISBECK, Charity Edwards, VIRGINIA MANNERINGVIRGINIA MANNERING, Dr Jason Crow

ACAN Australia 2024: Concrete Eulogies Tuesday, March 26th 2024, 7.30 pm online.

Link to YouTube recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ed1ZMXPeU

Can we keep building in concrete? The event is unique because it brings together several unique perspectives on concrete as a material. The central question is: Is embodied Carbon caught up with our concrete addiction, and what does that mean for architecture?

Concrete follies like the M-Pavilion, let alone all those architecture school projects. The session investigates concrete's material histories (Dr Jason Crow, Monadh University), as a geology of the Anthropocene (Virginia Mannering, MSD), and even as a symptom of chromophobia (Charity Edwards, MSD). Dr. Peter Raisbeck reads a poem written for the occasion. This creative work is entitled Ando is a Rando.

Bringing these issues together, the session investigates the concrete construction of Tadao Ando's 2024 M-Pavilion. The structure's embodied Carbon is estimated using the latest embodied carbon tools (EPIC). We assert how much embodied Carbon might be in Ando's M-Pavilion and ask, is it not enough to matter? Or is concrete now in palliative care, and will architects miss it?

This event contributes to research knowledge by answering the question. Given its contribution to global carbon emissions, how can architects now theorise concrete's canonical history in architecture? In the 20th century, concrete was primarily seen as a plastic material, enabling modernist expression. Concrete has also been associated with the aesthetic pleasures and narratives of 20th-century brutalism. However, due to rapid global warming, there have now been calls for a reassessment of concrete as a material.

This event contest is significant by countering existing narratives of concrete as a material of architectural form-making. Three unique theoretical and historical narratives of concrete are discussed: These narratives recognise with concrete's role as a driver of anthropogenic climate change. These contributions point to the ways that architects must now theorise and consider concrete as a socio-technical material that is contributing to global warming. During the event, the following was discussed: The 2024 MPavilion and carbon emissions. How concrete's chromophobia sits awkwardly amongst recent discussions of decolonising architecture. How technological changes have impacted on concrete's material artisanal epistemology. And how concrete can now be considered a humanmade stratum in the Anthropocene.

Funding

ACAN Australia

History

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