Mark West
FLEXIBILITY
A brief tour through several collaborative research and construction projects using fabric formworks for concrete construction: These Collective Improvisations involved not only interactions between the human participants (myself, my students, our clients) but also the active participation of the material world — specifically, wet concrete contained by flexible textile moulds. Together, these materials inevitably seek the shape of their own equilibrium in space. Our job is to understand and sympathize with these material desires and manipulate these urgencies towards our own ends. The double improvisation, between ourselves and with these materials, drives research and design in ways that are quite unlike a typical design process.
BIOGRAPHY
Mark West taught students of architecture and civil engineering for nearly forty years at universities in the US, Canada, and Europe, while working as an artist, inventor, builder, and researcher. His most recent appointments include professorships at the University of Washington, MEF University in Istanbul, and MIT. He was also a Professor of Architecture at the University of Manitoba (Canada) where he was the founding director of the Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology (CAST). He is currently working independently in Montreal Canada at Atelier Surviving Logic and with Natalija Subotincic at Ceci n’est pas un musée.