Year One: Clay Matter(s)

For the Sustainability Design Lab’s first year, students and faculty examined how clay has shaped New England landscapes and built environments. This examination included how clay deposits geologically, how it informs and shapes built structures, and its potential for creative, sustainable design.

Widely used in construction due to its abundance in most soils, clay is known both for its unique physical properties and an importance that crosses cultures. As both a physical and cultural medium, clay in New England relies on relationships between where and how it is extracted, produced and used. Clay has sparked curiosity but its history is also tied up in power relationships—subjugation, violence, racism, slavery. Additionally, practices of extraction have also harmed lands considered sacred by Indigenous communities in New England.

Clay is generally known as a sustainable, flexible and adaptable building material with the potential to reduce the carbon footprint of construction processes, increase thermal performance, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support soil health and more. However, the sustainability benefits of clay vary greatly depending on its use. (For instance, industrially fabricated brick and tile are more energy intensive than craft techniques like adobe molding.)

Throughout Clay Matter(s), we framed our investigations within the intersecting contexts of geology, history and practice, and between learning from the past and exploring future possibilities. Thanks to its multidisciplinary nature, the Sustainability Design Lab allowed for cross-fertilization of ideas for approaching clay. The curriculum encouraged us to expand on individual and collective practices by questioning the way we think about clay now and pushing the boundaries of potential sustainable uses.