The Concrete Design Master Class on Implicit Perfomance took place at deSingel in Antwerp, Belgium. From August 2 till August 9, 39 students from the 8 participating countries continued their investigation in the competion’s theme under guidance of curator Juan Herreros. The students, all laureates of the competition, worked in groups that each produced series of prototypes. They explored the possibilities of the material in relation to their interpretations of the theme. The investigations ranged from deteriorating surfaces to actively sensuous samples and were focused on structural properties, production techniques and esthetical appearances. The combined body of work and research produced during the master class represented an intriguing and challenging outline of future architectural applications in concrete.

The week started relaxed by exploring the city of Antwerp and its surroundings but quickly turned into a true workshop atmosphere. The first lecture of the week by Juan Herreros introduced the participants to the ambitions of the master class, to be scientific. By this Herreros meant ‘to be of use to others’, to produce a research that is valuable to users, industry and designers. The participants almost immediately had to generate concrete objects reflecting their view on ‘Implicit Performance’. The objective of the master class was to produce a large quantity of comparable physical objects, iterations on a focused segment of investigation. Rather than working towards one conclusive ‘final object’, the ambition was to lay out a field of plausible applications. In doing so the various limits of the material and the ways in which concrete architectural objects can be produced were discovered and challenged. It is exactly this matrix of trials and errors that produces an acute awareness of the material’s potential and of the position of applied material research within a design process. In other words to explore the width of possibilities rather than to focus on the one solution. Or in Juan Herreros’ words to actively submerge into a state of ‘suspended reality’ that will only reveal its true impact later on in ones endeavors.