Material Variance (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781941332863)

Lola Ben-Alon is a material designer, engineer, and scholar of architectural technology. She is Assistant Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), where she directs the Natural Materials Lab and the Building Technology curriculum. Her research examines raw earth- and plant-based materials through design experimentation, fabrication, and environmental life cycle studies. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Indian Ceramics Triennial, and Craft Contemporary Museum in Los Angeles, and published across design and scientific journals. Ben-Alon's scholarship bridges craft and technology, material traditions and ecology, advancing dialogues between architecture, science, and the natural environment. She holds a PhD in Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University and degrees in Structural Engineering and Construction Management from the Technion.

Andrés Jaque is Dean and Professor of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), and founder of the New York- and Madrid-based architecture practice Office for Political Innovation (OFFPOLINN). He holds a PhD in architecture, and is a practitioner, writer, and curator, internationally known for pioneering architecture as an entanglement of bodies, technologies, and environments. His work approaches materiality as relational, transscalar, and intrinsically political. His books include Superpowers of Scale (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2020), PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society (Fundació Mies Van der Rohe, 2013), and Mies y la gata Niebla. Ensayos sobre arquitectura y cosmopolítica (Puente Editores, 2019).