Patkau Architects: Material Operations

Patkau Architects is known for creating innovative, sculptural buildings that convey artistic expression through the purposeful use of materials. Patkau Architects: Material Operations reveals the architectural philosophy and techniques that drive the firm's extraordinary constructions.

Working directly with materials—bending them, breaking them, feeling their texture, mass, and strength—provides a depth of understanding that visual observation alone cannot. The firm's creations demonstrate how attending to and playing with specific materials yields a refreshed and expanded perspective on the possible. Patkau Architects: Material Operations investigates how the qualities of commonly available construction materials and unconventional techniques produce buildable, expressive forms with inherent structural capacities and evocative identities.