The AUT Material Cultures Lab presents Material Acts: a two-day residency and event series that offers the opportunity for architecture practitioners, students and enthusiasts to join workshops and discussions with those working in material innovation.

Through six sessions over two days, practitioners will share their insights into crafting new materials, speculating on possible materials and challenging the legislative, financial, and ritual conditions that determine how materials come into play. 

Sessions are listed on the Objectspace events page and are free and open to all. Find links below:

Session 1
Breakfast Cooking Show: Cooking up new materials at home with Frances Joseph and Claudine Nalesu
12 Nov, 7.30am – 9am
Find out more and register here 

Session 2
Speculative Organising: A Conversation about Alternative Ways of Getting Things Done in Architecture in Aotearoa
12 Nov, 12.30pm – 2pm
Find out more and register here

Session 3
Drinks on the Berm: Reclaiming Redundancies, Leftovers, and Urban Oddities in the City
12 Nov, 5.30pm – 7pm 
Find out more and register here

Session 4
Craft Practices: A Dialogue about Crafting New Materials
13 Nov, 7.30am – 9am
Find out more and register here

Session 5
Speculating on the future to get things done: A workshop about using architectural thinking to create new ‘standards’
13 Nov, 12.30pm – 2pm
Find out more and register here

Session 6
Closing Party and Residency Reflection
13 Nov, 5.30pm – 7pm
Find out more and register here

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Objectspace will be open throughout the residency, 7.30am – 7pm, 12 – 13 October 2025.

A selection of exhibition residents will be activating the space between events.

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Material Acts seeks to connect across a dynamic field of those trying to imagine and construct other possible realities, identifying and activating a relational network of practitioners grounded by their material practices.

Events are centred on three key themes. These themes will be used to look for new opportunities for engagement with architectural and material practices.
- Grounded Methods
- Speculative Organising
- Craft Practices

The first theme, Grounded Methods, will explore approaches and ideas that reckon with the physical ground we practice on - its forms, movements, autonomies, dependencies, histories, colonisations and contentions.

Speculative Organising will consider how we might re-imagine documents and relational systems like contracts, laws, rituals and manifestoes that mediate our relationships with material realities. 

Craft Practices will explore hands-on making and experimentation as processes that reflect and produce shared realities.