Materials in the Built Environment: Girli Concrete

As increasing numbers of women become involved in the shaping of the built environment, as designers, builders, policy-makers, artists and critics, one of the areas in which changes could potentially evolve is that of materiality itself.  As specifiers, and, increasingly, as environmental campaigners, it may be that women have a different feel for materials from that of men.  And as modern materials and technologies become more varied and sophisticated there is a rich fund of resources to draw on.  Buildings such as Ushida Findlay's Soft and Hairy House (Tsukuba-city, Japan 1994) or Wigglesworth/ Till's Straw Bale House (London 2001) are just two, randomly selected, examples of what might be seen as a ‘feminised' architectural practice in which the name itself draws attention to a specific agenda around materiality and tactility, linked to sustainability, in the built environment.

Lloyd Thomas (Lloyd Thomas 2006) points out that material practice in architecture cannot be divorced from social and political issues.  The modern built environment is the product of industrialisation and standardisation in the building industry in the post-war period, but also the legacy of a modernising and modernist ideology which can be interpreted as the embodiment of a specifically male outlook on the world and on women. Sparke (Sparke 1995) describes how a palette of hard, durable, utilitarian and ‘hygienic' building materials was promoted by the modernist lobby in the name of social progress and public health, effectively reigning in female influence and feminine qualities - characterised as comfort, warmth, softness, and intimacy - particularly in the domestic realm.  Mass-produced concrete, glass, metal and ceramic tile became the materials of choice for progressive building projects and interiors, ensuring ease of maintenance and transparency at the expense of women's privacy and autonomy, and traditional household-based crafts practices.

Above, L-R: Cashmere crumple, cashmere cloth embedded in concrete; Flocked, pattern detail from 45x45cm panel; Stainless linen: stainless steel and linen fabric sample

Concrete itself has, in the ensuing years, been subject to a backlash from all quarters on account of the problems which have emerged in relation to its durability, but also to its perceived ‘coldness' and alienating quality in the built environment.  Consequently this material has been subject to a considerable amount of research and experimentation.  Girli Concrete is one, provocatively-named, recent manifestation of this - a product developed by a two-woman team based at the University of Ulster, Belfast, Northern Ireland: Ruth Morrow, an architect, and Trish Belford, a textile designer.

Morrow states: ‘Girli Concrete comes out of an inclusive feminist agenda' which is not just about the product itself, but also the process of developing it.  It involves drawing on local textile traditions of lace-making, linen manufacture and Aran knitwear, alongside other more modern textile technologies such as flocking, and fusing these essentially ‘soft' materials and qualities with the structure and depth of concrete.  Belford describes it as an ‘alchemy of processes', stressing that it goes beyond decoration and aesthetics to interface with the integrity of the material itself and its performance, specifically in the area of acoustics.  It is she says about establishing a ‘balance of masculinity and femininity', where the process is cast in terms of a ‘recipe', and the notion of ‘performance' itself is extended to embrace human response as well as technical efficiency.

Above L-R: Trish Belford and Ruth Morrow, partners in Girli concrete; range of Girli concrete samples

Girli concrete conceptually marries concrete with curtains; urbanity with suburbanity; hard with soft; high technology with traditional and low technologies.'  Morrow and Belford are currently developing a range of ‘Structural Clothing' formed out of their new product, including ‘wall coats', ‘floor mattresses' and ‘column socks', which might be seen as a kind of emerging feminist counter-culture of materials in relation to mainstream traditions of built form and space. But in the future they hope to expand their field of experimentation across other materials and techniques, such as stitching and embroidery.  If and when their proposed Tactility Factory comes into being, they will be firmly positioned at the cutting edge of female-led research and development fusing the materials and aesthetics of the built environment with traditional low-cost, low-tech materials and processes.

Cashmere concrete: Detail from 45x45cm panel. Cashmere cloth embedded in concrete

Lava lace: Detail from 45x45cm panel. Lace embedded in concrete

Clare Melhuish

• A Female Role Model from Brazil: Lina Bo Bardi, Architect
• Materials in the Built Environment: Girli Concrete
• Safety in Public Urban Space: The Work of Women's Design Service
• Regeneration: Oxfam's Work at Govan, UK
• The Changing Shape of Gender and the Built Environment in the UK
• Gendered Space in Traditional Architecture
• Women Planners in Africa
• Planning the Non-Sexist City: the Eurofem Initiative and Beyond