“Claying Architecture,” co-edited by Kelley Van Dyck Murphy, analyzes material’s role in age of digital fabrication
2026-10-30 • Sam Fox School
“Claying Architecture: Making Machine and Material Kin,” edited in part by Associate Professor Kelley Van Dyck Murphy, has been released by Applied Research + Design. Senior Lecturer Matthew Allen is among the contributors.
The curated collection includes essays, interviews, and projects from leading architects, designers, and researchers who are analyzing the role of clay 3D printing in contemporary architecture. The book blends research, theory, and practice to highlight how this ancient material is being reimagined through 3D printing, robotic fabrication, and innovative construction techniques.
In an October 2026 review in The Architect’s Newspaper, writer Galo Canizares positions the central questions of the book as, “what does it mean to work with clay in the age of robotics and advanced computation? What affordances does clay offer as both an ancient material and one that has received renewed attention lately?”
“In asking these questions,” Canizares continues, “the book wrestles with many complex issues tangential to technology from indigeneity and discourses on extraction to cultural values and disciplinary boundaries.”
The editors, including Murphy, will give a roundtable discussion Nov. 4 at AIA New York’s Center for Architecture, sponsored by the Pratt School of Architecture.
Associate Professor
Claying Architecture: Making Machine and Material Kin
Claying Architecture: Making Machine and Material Kin presents a curated collection of essays, interviews and projects from leading architects, designers and researchers who are analyzing the role of clay 3D printing in contemporary architecture. The book blends research, theory and practice to highlight how this ancient material is being reimagined through 3D printing, robotic fabrication and innovative construction techniques.
Through original essays and project showcases, Claying Architecture brings together 30 plus voices from contemporary architectural academia and practice to interrogate why clay is a protagonist in contemporary architecture as an agent capable of binding new kinships between processes, environments and culture. In this sense, our ‘kinship’ with the machines of digital fabrication mirrors our ‘kinship’ with one another and opens up ways to reflect on how 3D printing clay is a method to reconsider how we code, construct and conceive architecture.