MATERIAL FOCUS

摘要

In 1995, Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael were alphabetically seated next to each other in an M.Arch. class at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Since then, they've gotten married and taught together at Clemson University's Charles E. Daniel Center for Building Research and Urban Studies in Genoa, Italy. In 2002, they also co-founded the Oakland, Calif.-based atelier Rael San Fratello, a workshop where models are often the finished product and the goal, posted on the firm's website, is "to disrupt the conventions of architecture by tackling projects not often of interest to architects." Rael, 42, an associate professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and San Fratello, 43, an assistant professor at San Jose University's Department of Design, don't have licenses or more than a handful of completed projects between them; instead, they're guided by a spirit of political activism and an interest in expanding the boundaries of material technology. Here, they discuss the intersection of immigration and design, the limits of architecture, and an experimental approach to 3D printing-which they explore with their materials research arm Emerging Objects-that they hope will revolutionize our environment.