Labour matters: the politics of materials and making in architecture

In architecture, many recent material-based discourses focus on the way in which digital drawing and fabrication technologies facilitate experimentation with the formal and affective capacities of materials, particularly through the use of 1:1 scale prototyping. Yet, there is often minimal discussion of the ontological and socio-political issues embedded within these practices; nor how these methodologies might challenge or disrupt established assumptions about materials and, in particular, the organisation of labour during the fabrication process. If the architectural discipline is to aspire to an “inclusive architecture” based on a reconsideration of matter and materials (Borden and Meredith 2012: 2), then it is also crucial to consider all aspects of practice – including labour. To unpack these issues in more depth, the paper refers to French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari’s critique of the philosophical model of form and matter known as “hylomorphism” and the association of this notion with the segregation of intellectual and manual labour in Western society, including architectural practice. They argue that the hylomorphic concept can be associated with a broader sense of hierarchy within Western philosophy: prompting a way of thinking based on “a society divided into governors and governed, and later, intellectuals and manual laborers” (Deleuze and Guattari 2004: 407). Their association of hylomorphism with classical Western philosophy establishes a specific theoretical context for the present paper.