SpActrum Shanghai Office / SpActrum

Born to Build – Today’s construction process is often reduced to its final outcomes, with more steps and intermediate forms than historically seen. For example, the process of formwork erection for a concrete project involves the erection of a dense forest of scaffolding and then the formwork for the negative form of the building supported, in steps that seem far removed from the final form. In such a process, the forms resulting from the construction process continue to emerge and are annihilated in the newly emerging forms, so that the construction process, which has no attempt on the form or on an intellectual level, becomes a continuous generator with contently emerging and withering forms, thus it undergoes the most dramatic formal changes of the site.

This situation is currently being ignored by architects in two dimensions: 1) the failure to incorporate this state of constant change into metaphysical thinking as a generator of formal language; and 2) the loss of the ability to understand the materiality of materials, to investigate the physical tendencies of the materials themselves, and to adjust and guide the generation of form, which was possible in the Classical period due to the immediacy of the building process and the oneness of the builder and the designer whose is adjusting and guiding the ability of form generation during construction procedures.

Starting in 2019, SpActrum Architects has been designing and actively involved in all aspects of the construction process. SpActrum’s architects traveled from site to site, experiencing the process of building from scratch under the contemporary construction system. Witnessing the double neglect mentioned above, and perhaps thanks for keeping a fresh eye, they were amazed at the general numbness and indifference of the industry to such neglect. Construction site forms emerge and disappear, which means that a large number of components are either discarded or recycled at the end of their construction steps or hidden deep within the finished product and never known again.

These components, which are essential to the construction, do not appear in any public view. When the SpActrum office moved to a new location, they decided to break this silence and confront this oversight with their own office and exhibition space, utilizing these hidden behind-the-scenes forces as surface material for their office/exhibition space. Re-establishing the link with the new functional needs by their physical properties, their forms can be readily perceived while reaching new ways of use. In this way, these built materials enter into the everyday consciousness of us as builders and the public consciousness of visitors.

A non-exhaustive list of materials repurposed from the construction process is detailed below:
Molds: the main modeling tool for concrete pouring, typically made of metal or plastic, reborn as furniture supports.
Firebricks: architectural ceramics that need to be hardened and fired in a hearth protected by refractory bricks, reborn as furniture supports.

GMT Pallets: Serving as fire-resistant pallets in the sintering of machine-made bricks, these refractory fiber slabs take on a marble-like appearance when resin-coated and are used as the bench worktop.
Floor Bearing Plates: Serving dual roles as formwork and reinforcement in the concrete process, these plates are mass-produced in factories through welding, boasting substantial structural capacity and used as general supports for the bench worktop and the exhibition tabletop.

Burlap Sacks: Originally rudimentary packaging for transporting raw goods, these sacks, once filled and sewn, serve as space screens.