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Material Processes and Systems Group students exhibit at 2016 Cevisama

The annual Cevisama fair is the largest exhibition of ceramics and terracotta in the world, and this year a team of students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Material Processes and Systems Group (MaP+S) are presenting what Architect’s Newspaper called “one of the most advanced and exciting projects in the entire fair.”

Titled “Extruded Tesselation: Ceramic Tectonics,” the project explores the design space of a novel ceramic customization strategy that MaP+S researchers and students have developed. The technique involves the automated cutting of clay extrusions that are industrially produced on a state of the art extrusion line. The ceramic elements have been extruded from a single die, thus reducing tooling costs.

The GSD students who conceived the project’s design and construction documents are Juan Pablo Ugarte (MArch ‘14/DDes ’17), Saurabh Mhatre (MDes ’15), and Sarah Norman (DDes ’17). Through MaP+S, they collaborate with GSD faculty members Martin Bechthold (DDes ’01), who is the GSD’s Kumagai Professor of Architectural Technology and director of the Doctor of Design program, and lecturer in architecture Leire Asensio Villoria.

The two walls that the group is exhibiting at Cevisama comprise about 700 elements, or pieces, with lengths ranging from 15 to 60 centimeters each. These pieces are used to create a unique surface texture on different wall surfaces, while maintaining the overall consistency of a strongly ornamental expression of the tectonic system.

To learn more about the project and MaP+S, visit the MaP+S website.