Zaneta Hong

Zaneta Hong

Garden Club of America Rome Prize
September 10, 2018–July 26, 2019
Profession
Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture, University of Virginia
Project title
Material Traceability
Project description

Architects and designers actively participate in the expansive reorganization of Earth’s matter and form. While the circumstances of these spatial interventions tend to manifest as isolated artifacts and environments, their material existence is generated from an entanglement of complex and interconnected ecologies from the microscopic to the planetary. My research will investigate the latent and hidden histories of natural stones and minerals used in Italian construction materials and methods, to better understand qualitative metrics applied in material performance assessments and sustainable design practices. By mapping the life cycle of select building materials from Carrara marble to pozzolanic ash, each of these material agents will be traced from their source of origin to final construction site – in an event to understand how specific materials have shaped and been shaped by unique cultural geographies and emergent technologies.